


Twice Trumped (Work in Progress)

by loosenoodlepoodledoodle



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Comedy, F/F, Fantasy, Horror, Parody, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-20 05:00:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13710372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosenoodlepoodledoodle/pseuds/loosenoodlepoodledoodle
Summary: Join Twice in the ultimate adventure as they fight to overthrow the Orange One! Thrills, chills, and absurdity ensue! Beware of tonal whiplash!Inspired by the "Signal" M/V.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1-30-19 I have overhauled part 1. I deleted chapters en masse. The new chapters are fewer but longer. Also I deleted part 2, will repost as I overhaul it. But the beginning of part 1 is unchanged, i just combined them into fewer chapters.

       

             It was late one dark and stormy night, when our heroes, the ladies of Twice, were awoken in surprise. It was an emergency, they were told, and so they dutifully put themselves together and left the dorm. They were led to a once-familiar hallway, but it was not so familiar tonight. In the gloomy dark, they noticed an elevator where on previous days there had only been an empty wall. Inside, there were no buttons or controls, nor even an indicator of the floor they were on. They were startled by the doors shutting swiftly behind them, and their sudden silent descent.

             Soon their journey downwards ended, but a greater one had just begun. They were greeted by the man himself, Park Jin-Yeong, founder of JYP Entertainment.

             “I’m sorry to wake you when you’ve had so little sleep, but something serious has come up. It’s hard to fathom, anyway,” he said.

             “Oh my God, PD- _nim_ ,” answered Jihyo. “Is this a secret bomb shelter? Are we all going to die?” The girls of Twice were very worried through their somnambulant haze.

             JYP looked noncommittal. “It is a secret bunker, although no war is coming, at least not yet. But we want to keep it that way. And that is why I have brought you here.”

             Confusion joined the host of emotions crowding the girls’ minds, uninvited. “Why? Why us? How could we possibly help with that sort of thing? I doubt even a free concert in Pyongyang would settle North Korea down.” They all concurred.

             “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” JYP responded. “First, sit down, there’s an important video call on hold for you.”

             They did as they were told, noticing for the first time they were in some type of conference room with a huge television mounted on the far wall. JYP turned it on.

             The man waiting to speak so urgently to them was none other than the President of South Korea. The girls nearly hit their heads on the table in their rush to bow. “ _Annyeongseumnikka_!” they practically shouted.

             “Sit down, please, we have so little time,” said the President. His voice and face were very grave. “I wouldn’t be doing this if we had any other choice, but I am hereby drafting you into a secret mission: to destroy Trump.”

             The girls were shocked. How had things gotten so bad that they had to assassinate the leader of their great ally? And why the fuck were they the ones to get the mission?

             Sensing their discomfort, the President continued. “You’ll understand why it had to be you shortly. In the meantime, to those of you who are not Koreans: my government has already received permission from your home countries to press you into service. They believe in the mission, and in your abilities.” Behind him, Lt. Commander Worf could be seen working furiously to restore power to the shields and phaser arrays. “Perhaps today _is_ a good day to die,” he growled.

             The President saluted the girls. “Good luck. And may you return victorious, or not at all.”

             As the screen faded, the girls were beyond shock. They had completely frozen, utterly nonplussed. JYP had to herd them into the next room. “This is the laboratory. The bathroom is through there. Please, hurry and get cleaned up and dressed for the next stage. We have little time.”

             They found simple black military outfits had been readied for them in a small sort of locker room. They looked at each other; what had they been thrown into? Before they could find any words, they heard PD- _nim_ extoll them to move faster. Soon, they were back in the lab.

             Jihyo was first in line. JYP sat her in a weird sort of mesh-cage chair, and pulled out an evil-looking monster syringe. “This shouldn’t really hurt, but man, it is not going to be pleasant.” He hesitated.

             “What the fuck are you waiting for?” said Jihyo.

             PD- _nim_ frowned. “I am not about to stick a long pointy thing into your body without your consent. That goes for the rest of you, too.”

             Jihyo burst out laughing. “I didn’t know until just now that there was some kind of secret female conscription law, and we’re being sent on a suicide mission to kill Fat Orange Hitler. Why ask us permission for this?”

             Still, PD- _nim_ hesitated. So Jihyo asked what it would do.

             “It will give you the abilities you need to not just defeat Trump, but to come back home in the end.”

             She looked in the corner behind him. A stack of briefcases stood there, and she could see that each one had one of the girls’ names on them. Hers was on top, of course, open and empty.

             The dim lights flickered, as a low, faint rumbling permeated the room. “Please,” whispered PD- _nim_.

             “Fine. Hurry up about it.”

             She instantly regretted her decision. However, she could not voice her regret, as though the needle was only slightly painful, the brew within it delivered terrors and chills, so much so that she doubled up. She never felt the warm friendly hands of her concerned compatriots leading her over to a big comfy chair to recover. But she did begin to notice other things.

             Her eyes were closed, and yet she could see through another one, one that she was only opening for the very first time. With it, she could see the others, see the poison flowing through their veins, see it changing them from the inside. Nayeon was the next one after her. Jihyo commiserated with her, and saw Nayeon’s own third eye open up. But it wasn’t the same as hers; it had a different focus, inside the mind, and not through matter and space.

             She couldn’t get as good a look at the others; her new vision began to blur, and she felt even more exhausted. It was only the horrid side effects that kept her from falling back to sleep. But she did notice that not everyone had received mental-type powers.

             She came out of her mystical funk in a brightly lit room, a small cafeteria that was now a makeshift training area. She found herself sitting on a bench, next to most of the others. But some of them had recovered faster than her, and were now enjoying their newfound abilities.

             Chaeyeong was levitating chairs, occasionally pitching them at Momo and Tzuyu. Momo would dodge them insanely fast, and Tzuyu would simply knock them out of the air with an elegant kick, utterly destroying them. She then picked up several in a pile with her bare hands, and casually tossed them as if they were mere paper cups.

             Nayeon and Mina remained sitting next to Jihyo. She wanted to find the others, so she tried using her third eye again. She realized Jeongyeon was flitting about the room, seemingly through teleportation. Sana was nowhere to be found, but she quickly discovered Dahyeon creeping around. Then she noticed her on the other side of the room, and then again on the other end of the bench beside Mina, and then sitting directly next to her herself. It freaked Jihyo right the fuck out.

             “Wow, I can’t believe this is happening,” said one Dahyeon.

             “Yeah, isn’t this crazy?” said another.

             “I think I know which one is the real you,” said Nayeon.

             “Oh yeah? How?” asked Dahyeon, and Dahyeon, and Dahyeon…

             Nayeon frowned. “Like this,” she said, concentrating on the closest one.

             Suddenly, all the Dahyeons except the one skulking in the corner popped out of existence. “What the fuck did you do?” she asked.

             “I’ve got some kind of mind-reading power. It seemed like all your clones were connected, so I tried some kind of psychic attack to dispel them. I’m quite pleased with myself, actually.” And she smiled that cutie-pie smile she’s always got!

             At this point, Sana finally appeared, and the girls who had been horsing around with the chairs now stopped.

             “Where were you?” Mina asked Sana.

             “I was in here, but just invisible. But it was confusing, everything looked and sounded so strange. I tried moving through solid objects, but it didn’t seem to work.”

             Nayeon went back to frowning. “Why would you think you had the noclipping cheat?”

             Sana beamed brightly. “Aren’t these powers all based on our music video for ‘Signal’?”

             JYP, who had been eavesdropping, interrupted. “Yes, but some of the powers were impractical. Your noclipping, for example, would have led to you falling to the center of the Earth. So instead, your power is ripped off from _The Lord of the Rings_. And Nayeon didn’t actually have a power in that M/V, she just ripped off _Men in Black_ ’s memory sticks. Therefore, Project X assigned her something actually useful. Now it’s time to go, you have a plane to catch, and you need to take off before The Storm arrives.”

             The girls felt an ominous dread; they could practically hear the capitalization in their PD- _nim’s_ voice. But Chaeyeong still had one more question.

             “So, this Project X. Is it what I think it is?”

             Their PD- _nim_ nodded. “Yes, we ripped off another movie franchise. Our lawyers advised me never to specify which exact one. But trust me, we had no other choice. Now come on.”

             He led them to a different elevator, a more rugged, industrial type that carried them up a diagonal shaft through what was clearly bedrock. It brought them into a hangar bay carved into a mountainside. Within it was a small stealth jet. It would carry them on their journey over the pole, nearly to the enemy’s very doorstep.

             A pair of blast doors slid open noisily. Outside, Korea looked peaceful; the girls could not believe what they were about to embark upon.

             JYP stepped to the edge. “Look, in the east!”

             The girls peered out and beheld a disturbing sight: it was the Know-Nothing!

             JYP looked grave. “It’s nearly here. But fortunately, Trump can’t actually figure out how maps work, so his miasma took the long way around, over the Pacific Ocean. The shorter route over the North Pole should have clear skies and smooth flying.”

             He turned to his awkward charges. “Listen, you can do this.  Right now, you’re the only ones who can. Don’t overuse your new powers; you’re untrained, and lack the mana pool necessary to abuse them.”

             They each nodded tentatively in turn, and he continued.

             “There’s so much I wish I could say to you all, but it’s already too late.” The wind began to howl. JYP struggled to find the right words.

             “You can do this! And if you make it back…we are gonna sell so many albums.”

             He sighed, a trace of wetness around the edge of his eyes. “When you land in New York, I’ve got a contact waiting to pick you up. Fare thee well!”

             The girls boarded the plane and took off. With tears in his eyes, he wondered whether it might be all for naught. He stood there for quite some time, watching as the Tweetstorm approached, the echoes of “SAD!” and “FAKE NEWS!” reverberating through the valley below. And when, finally, the Darkness overtook him, his final words were, _“AHH! THE STUPID! IT BURNS!”_

 

***

 

             When Twice had boarded the plane, they had found enough room on board for the nine of them to sit comfortably. There was even a second toilet! But the plane itself had no crew, merely being a sophisticated military drone. Information packets and backpacks had been prepared in advance, and all the girls had to do on their fifteen-hour or so flight was study up and rest. And worry.

             The bug bit Tzuyu first, the youngest of the group. Flying over the Arctic unnerved her, what with it being the land of always winter. She also thought back to the finale of the reality show _Sixteen_ , when PD- _nim_ had broken the rules to let her into Twice. The damned trolls had never tired of calling bullshit on that one. But still, JYP must have seen something in her to do that. She was just afraid she wouldn’t be good enough for this, the craziest thing imaginable. Well, second-craziest, after Trump himself. And yet, she didn’t voice her concern to the others, not wanting to disturb their rest or be seen as the weak one. So instead, she tried giving herself a pep talk, imagining PD- _nim_ cosplaying as Haymitch Abernathy (indeed, most of the other girls would do the exact same thing).

             “ _Very often, physical strength tips the balance in a fight_ ,” said Haymitch- _nim_. He didn’t say anything more, however, because Tzuyu finally settled into slumber, would-be nightmares drifting around her troubled psyche, but failing to gain purchase this time.

             The others had similar experiences. Sana had felt a shiver of fear when the plane first passed over the Tweetstorm. At that altitude, its bloviations were completely unintelligible (although they were nearly so to begin with), but it still produced some thunder. Sana had always been afraid of thunderstorms, and the fact that they were being flown by robot to the heart of the worst one the earth had ever experienced would certainly induce anxiety in anyone.

             She worried, too, about her innate clumsiness. They had made light of it back in Twice’s very first music video, but it seemed to her that she would only be a burden in a fight. Maybe that’s why they gave her invisibility: so no one could see her fuck things up. Her trepidation building, Sana eventually imagined Haymitch- _nim_ explaining that stealth is valuable in any situation.

             Chaeyeong was apprehensive about being the smallest team member, and one of the youngest. But she loved her telekinesis power; it reminded her of the furniture battle at the Weasley house in _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_. It also made her into a total badass. Better than rapping someone to death.

             Momo spent the flight avoiding the very few windows on the plane, as she was afraid of heights. She also thought about her power, super speed. It was nearly as useful as Chaeyeong’s but more personally dangerous. She wasn’t sure either that she could control it properly. If only they had gotten three days of training time like in _The Hunger Games_!

             That comparison disturbed her, as did the inevitable one with _Battle Royale_. She was Japanese, after all. Her version of Haymitch- _nim_ extolled the practical benefits of the fast advance and tactical retreat in combat.

             Jeongyeon’s power was to freeze time relative to herself and move freely during the effect.  Because outside observers could not see what she could, they assumed it was some sort of teleportation. But it wasn’t. It was also easily the most exhausting of all the powers granted to the girls. Perusing the mission briefing materials, she realized that the best way to use her power was to save the lives of the others by pulling them out of danger. She was only afraid that she would fail them.

             Nayeon had made the mistake early in the flight of gazing out the window. Down below, the sea made her tense, their depths hiding who knew what. Death? Of course, but there could be worse things, too. Like hipsters. Could anything so absurd even be real? But if Trump could exist, then why couldn’t other horrors? For that matter, was doubting the existence of hipsters itself hipsteric? The thought made Nayeon shudder.

             Her left leg also bothered her. It had been weaker than the other ever since a car accident from years before. She had always had to compensate for it in her dancing, and what if it gave out at the worst moment, when all her friends needed her to keep up?

             Although she did not think her own power was very useful. The briefing materials likened it to “legilimency,” which sounded a lot like mind reading. She knew she could try a stun with it as well, but honestly, Trump was known for being a total fucking idiot. How useful could fancy mind reading be against the utterly brainless? Haymitch- _nim_ had no advice to give in her restless dreams.

             Mina had much the same fear, but even worse than Nayeon. She didn’t even get a chance to try her power out before they left. Her briefing file called it weak mind-control, and she had the same reservations about it that Nayeon had about hers. One of the reports in the file suggested projecting her own mind into the empty-headed, but Mina felt that was extremely dangerous. What if she lost herself in there? What if something tried to claw its way back into her own mind? The whole ordeal thus far had put her stress level through the roof, and she was not the best equipped to handle it. Out of all of them on that flight, she probably slept the worst.

             Between her and the others, Jihyo felt the most at ease. Not that she wasn’t horribly nerve-wracked; she just seemed to be handling it better than the rest of them. Maybe it was because they had elected her group leader when Twice began, a time that suddenly felt like ages ago. She also was the most convinced that her power would be extremely useful to them. With it, she could probe the enemy for weaknesses, scout out a path, and search for the others should they somehow become separated. She fell asleep with the most confidence.

             And then there was Dahyeon. The third youngest, she was sort of afraid of everything. Heights. Animals. Horror movies. And the Trump administration had become the scariest horror movie ever conceived. But at least her power was one of the most impressive, although she did not like her briefing about it. It was poor in useful details; apparently it was the most mysterious to Project X as well. The report really only speculated as to its practical uses, chief of which was a simple decoy. Dahyeon read into this as her role being a source of cannon fodder for whatever goons the Golden One had scrounged up. It did bring her down a notch, and Haymitch- _nim_ gave her no advice either.

             The long hours finally passed, and they began their descent into the New York metropolitan area. Their destination was LaGuardia; JFK had been turned into a giant shit stain as part of Trump’s effort to erase all landmarks relating to presidents with greater legacies than he. Since he had no idea that LaGuardia was even named for a person, he had left it alone. As for Newark, well… it was already the asshole of the universe before Trump got started.

             He had not left the rest of Queens alone, though. Most of it was covered with massive spider webs, courtesy of Borders and Customs Enforcement. They were there to catch immigrants, and since that is what the borough is best known for, the place was pretty much toast. Fortunately, the girls’ contact would provide them with a direct passage through. But first they had to find him.

 

***

 

             The plane touched down in darkness. The girls thought this was strange. Hadn’t they been in the air long enough for the sun to come up on this side of the planet? But no dawn would ever come to that city, unless their mission succeeded.

             They disembarked the plane with their gear in tow. It took off, never to be seen again. The only weapons they had been issued in their kit were combat knives; they felt almost defenseless in this, the Land of the Holy Gun.

             A preternatural quiet settled across the tarmac. In the distance, they could see what was left of the skyline of New York. The once proud city, wonder of the world, had been reduced to shambles in Trump’s pursuit of overcompensation. His dark tower now soared into the heavens, lancing into a strange mass of clouds. They swirled about the upper reaches of Trump Tower, like a slow-motion, upside-down, inside-out tornado. Faint tongues of golden lightning were just barely visible, dancing about, fellating the penthouse in a fashion reminiscent of the daydreams of an old man with an unhealthy fascination with his own daughter. The dread grew in Twice’s hearts.

             But LaGuardia, it seemed, was quite deserted. It had been so for years, ever since the great Golden Blob had started to absorb everything of value. Money, tacky artwork, and above all else, kitsch. Even more than that, though, it had swallowed up the fools who had supported him, vomiting up their carcasses, reanimated to do His bidding. Stubborn, blinded fools, like victims of some brain-wasting prion disease. And maybe that is how it had all started, so long ago, with some ritualistic orgy of cannibal cravings. And also incest.

             Regardless of where they came from, however, the first of these servants awaited our heroes in the airport food court, because of course that’s where they would be. They were called Magas, rat-faced fiends and troglodytes of no gender, with those ridiculous red caps grafted directly to their skulls, the only indication that they had once been human. They subsisted on a diet of Trump’s own bullshit, grilled to perfection by his corporate underlings, and called ‘steaks’ by the pious. They had no nutritional content, and thus were shat out whole by the monsters, only to be consumed ravenously once again. The return on investment was phenomenal.

             The girls nearly puked their guts up at the sight of them all. The sounds of their gagging alerted the enemy, who gave up cries of alarm. But they did not attack immediately, instead being stricken by the first real beauty they had seen in forever. In fact, over half of them spontaneously combusted right there due to the explosive orgasms they experienced. This gave the girls time to recover.

             Chaeyeong struck first, and she was so effective at flinging chairs through the weak bodies of the Magas that it looked for a moment like she would win the fight all on her own. But unbeknownst to them, the enemy had multiple respawn points behind them in the terminal, so they were quickly arraigned in a trial by fire.

             Knives flashed, and bits of mort flesh flew. The Magas had no teeth, as they had no health insurance, but their dirty nails could scratch painfully, as each of the girls soon knew. Chaeyeong tired out, and with her unable to keep the pressure off the group, they were in danger of being overwhelmed. The others tried to use their own powers, but few had any success. Mina and Nayeon were unable to concentrate on any one enemy in particular, so all they could do was try to hold the line. Jeongyeon had some success running interference, but her power ran out of juice too soon as well. When Sana tried turning invisible to find a way around the horde, she came back immediately, screaming about how she saw their true forms in the shadows.

             Tzuyu and Momo had the greatest success. Tzuyu simply used her super strength to pull a steel beam from one of the walls and fucking club the shit out of those freaks, while Momo had discovered she could leverage her speed and knock them right on their sorry asses. But Tzuyu was tiring out too, and Momo was finding out that even a small mistake with her technique could lead to injury.

             Jihyo, their leader, could see that things were looking really bleak. But she did what a leader should, directing her troops, giving encouragement, and covering the gaps in the line that inevitably opened up. She used her power more sparingly than the others, only scanning ahead for the next wave, or checking her teammates’ positions. She noticed Dahyeon on the ground, being held by a nasty Maga in a death-grip choke. She sliced off the fetid brute’s offending mitts and was about to help the stricken girl up when everything suddenly stopped.

             A sound bellowed throughout the large room. It was like the iconic sound from _Inception_ , but intertwined with what could have been the brown noise. All the Magas stopped the fight and jumped for joy. They ran toward one of the entrances, falling over themselves and each other in orgiastic glee. Jihyo used her super sight to see what was coming. The answer was not very reassuring.

             Below her, Dahyeon gasped. Around the corner it came, the guardian of the mezzanine. It was shaped like a tall stickman, made entirely out of firearms. _This foe is beyond any of you_ , thought Jihyo in Gandalf’s voice. “Run!” she ordered. All but Nayeon dutifully obeyed, Tzuyu using the last reserves of her strength to carry Momo and Dahyeon through the exit.

             Jihyo was transfixed by the look of pure, horrified disgust on Nayeon’s face. She turned around to see what had happened.

             She wished that she hadn’t.

             The Magas were being absolutely sickening in their worship of the Gun Man. They crowded around its fake feet, completely oblivious to being crushed by rifle butt or impaled by Wal-Mart brand bayonet. Many of them even had their mouths inappropriately wrapped around the myriad gun barrels of the thing. Jihyo wanted to kill herself right then and there.

             But she couldn’t, not when she had a team depending on her, and a mission to complete. She found the Gun Man’s weak spot immediately. She told Nayeon, “I think you know where to aim.”

             That she did. Concentrating hard, and frowning her frowniest frown, Nayeon cast her stun ability with all the pent up force and frustration she could muster. Jihyo could actual _feel_ the disturbance in the Force, like a psychic Pokémon cranked up on meth shouting “ _FUS RO DAH!_ ” for the very first time. The psychic blast warped the space-time continuum as it hurtled directly into the Gun Man’s crotch.

             Every firearm in its body ejaculated simultaneously, tearing both itself and the Magas to smithereens. The last of them shrieked “ _MONEYSHOT!_ ” with ecstatic glee right before the inferno engulfed them. The food court began to collapse, and Jihyo had to catch the now spent Nayeon to save her from the impending destruction. For a brief moment, they held each other in their arms. A lone ship stood silently at anchor out in the harbor, waiting to set sail. But it would have to wait a little longer. Then the two of them rejoined the others racing down a hallway towards their contact point.

             It was the taxi stand near the main entrance. Skeletons of dead cabbies were impaled on spikes, or hanging from the overpass, all for daring to be union. Across the street, several Uber-drones were punching a lonely Lyft-bot, stealing its lunch money. The girls were astounded yet again.

             Just then, their contact arrived in an unremarkable dark van. He shouted, “Get in, quick!” But the girls were unsure, as he looked like a bearded crazy.

             His shouting had also attracted the attention of Uber. Cursing, the man pulled out his phone and ordered a ride. He then hurled the phone back up the lane. The Uber-drones tore each other apart in their race for a fare, but the Lyft-bot would never drive again.

             Apprehensive, the girls of Twice still hesitated. Dripping with annoyance, their contact muttered, “Jeez, do I have to do the string dance?” This caused the girls to finally recognize him. It was Conan O’Brien! They piled into the van and it pulled away, leaving the Uber-drones to melt in their syphilitic pyre.

             Around them, Queens resembled something out of _The Mist_. Jihyo decided to fill the silence. “So, Conan, you sure look different from that time we shot that music video together.”

             Conan grinned. “Yeah, the beard helps me go incognito, and since Trump may technically look like a ginger, I get points on that front!”

             A laugh track erupted from the dash. “What the fuck is that?” said Jeongyeon. It hooted even more boisterously!

             “Oh that. It’s the way I keep my sanity in these trying times.” The tittering crowd switched to an impressive applause. He turned it off for the girls’ sake.

             The van soon entered the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Ironically, with most of the borough depopulated, the BQE was in the best condition it had been in in decades. Conan soon pulled off onto the exit for the Queensboro Bridge.

             “Okay, here’s the game plan. I am gonna drop you off in front of the Tower, and you nine are going to save the world. Meanwhile, I have to move quickly. The Night Market is being held in a wine cellar under the Brooklyn Bridge.”

             Mina was surprised. “People still live in this town?”

             Conan grimaced. “Yes, but it’s mostly hipsters.”

             The girls cringed. There really were fates worse than death.

             As they crossed the East River, Nayeon looked south. In the distance, she saw the Statue of Greatness: a golden idol of Trump with big, big hands. She averted her eyes, and saw dead things in the cloying dark waters below. She really wanted to puke.

             The ride progressed without further incident. The Russian soldiers guarding the cordon several blocks out from the Tower let the van through unmolested. Even the KGB admitted that it had erred. Conan pulled right up front and stopped. He gazed upward, into the glittering murk.

             “Nowadays, it seems like nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out,” he murmured. The girls exited the van, and Conan turned to give them one last piece of advice.

             “Don’t look into the deadlights,” he warned. And he gazed upon them with the eyes of Lazarus.

             The girls could not even muster a weak wave goodbye as he pulled away. The neighborhood was strangely clean and deserted. Looking up, every window they could still see was blank, but some of the girls thought they could feel angry eyes watching them. They took one last deep breath, and with Jihyo leading the way, entered the tower.


	2. Chapter 2

             The lobby was deserted, surprisingly clean, and not even half as tacky as they were expecting. This was because Trump’s adult sons were so incompetent at running the Organization that they lost money almost as fast as He could siphon it up. So they still needed to meet with donors from time to time. On the front desk, Jihyo spotted a hand-scrawled note. It sent a chill up her spine: _I hate you all_.

             Beyond the front desk was a great hall, adorned with many presidential portraits of the Golden One. They all had a sinister feel, and Mina was sure they were looking at her when her back was turned. And not just staring, either, but mentally undressing them all. Ugh.

             They walked to the end of the hall, expecting to find the elevators, but it was a dead end. There were no doors there either, not even to a stairwell. Awkwardly, they glanced about at the floor, unwilling to look at the portraits too closely, wondering what to do.

             Just then, they heard a metallic clinking coming from the entrance. They rushed back to find a heavy golden chain had sealed them in. The Trump portraits all had satisfied smirks, too. “Fuck,” said Nayeon.

             They fanned out, a dangerous mistake in most scary stories, but nothing happened to separate them this time. They soon found the restrooms, a janitor’s closet, and what appeared to be some sort of employees’ break room. It had its own kitchen, but the real find was the set of comfy sofas and vending machines. It also lacked the portraits outside; instead there was one of Ivanka, looking mighty damn fine. The girls supposed it was better motivation for the part-timers who showed up on occasion. Jihyo looked at her charges, noting that they had not had a real opportunity to recover from the airport fight. Conan’s carpooling was too short, and anyway they were in way too much shock.

             “Alright,” said Jihyo. “We’ve been through a lot already. Until we find a way forward, we might as well eat and rest while we can. This room is less creepy than the rest of this place. We can go ahead and take whatever food we can find, and if you need to use the restroom, definitely go with a friend. And probably tell the rest of us, too.”

             The others nodded, and set off to make camp. They were very tender, serving each other meals, dressing each other’s wounds. They even found cozy blankets to snuggle under! Soon most of them were full of delicious food, and tuckered out, fast asleep.

             Jihyo felt such love for her teammates as she looked about at them. Then she noticed Nayeon sitting right next to her, staring over at Ivanka.

             “What are you looking at?”

             Nayeon turned around, in a slight daze. “What? Oh, nothing.”

             There was a very pregnant pause. Out in the harbor, a bell tolled aboard the ship.

             Nayeon broke the silence. “So...what’s our next move?”

             Jihyo sighed. “Well, this place obviously has elevators, we just have to find them. I think that means ripping the paintings off the wall in there.”

             “Yeah, I think you’re right,” said Nayeon.

             Jihyo looked down at her hands, and then over at Sana and Dahyeon. The two of them were snuggled with their faces together, cheek against cheek. Jihyo thought they looked wonderful. Out in the harbor, the ship’s crew was now wide awake.

             She looked back at Nayeon, who was once again staring at Ivanka.

             “Hey.”

             Nayeon turned around. “Huh?”

             For a moment, Jihyo was lost in Nayeon’s eyes. Then she came back to herself. “Doesn’t this place seem a bit odd?”

             Nayeon almost rolled her eyes. “Of course it does. Everything we’ve done today seems odd. I’m more surprised we were able to find a little bit of normal in here.”

             Jihyo giggled a little bit. “I meant something more specific. Like, doesn’t this place have some, I don’t know, impossible architecture?”

             Nayeon frowned. “How do you mean?”

             “I mean, the inside seems too big compared to the outside. And the floor space is in the wrong shape.”

             Nayeon smiled. “That just means Bethesda designed this level.”

             Somewhere, someone reading this fist-pumped the air.

             Jihyo looked again at their companions. Listening closely, she could just hear the sound of their soft breathing. It was very pretty. But then Jihyo’s heart quickened just a little; it was _too_ quiet. She expected to hear all the normal sounds of a great big office building, or the HVAC system at the very least. Instead, there was nothing. No whirring, no vibrations, not even unnerving footsteps overhead.

             She tried using her sight, as she wasn’t quite ready to sleep, and thought perhaps they should have set a watch for safety. Immediately upon scanning the great hall, she noticed the portraits were making eye contact. She cut it out at once, and with a twinge of terror looked to her friend beside her for reassurance.

             Nayeon, however, was staring at that damned painting again.

             “What the fuck is up with you and that thing?”

             “Huh? Oh, nothing! It’s just… it’s just sort of dreamy, you know?”

             She looked at Jihyo. The words were unspoken between them: _But not as dreamy as you._

             Jihyo shivered. “Is it just me or is it cold in here?”

             Nayeon took out a spare blanket. “Come on, let’s bundle up together.”

             Jihyo felt the heat of her blush course through her skin. Nayeon cuddled on top as they snuggled together. She nuzzled Jihyo’s neck, and gave her a peck on the cheek to say goodnight. She was asleep before anything could happen. Out in the harbor, the crew of the ship was dismayed by the false alarm.

             Jihyo sighed happily. Just before sleep claimed her, she took one look back at the painting.

             She was sure Ivanka had been wearing clothes when they walked in.

 

***

 

             The two of them were startled awake by Chaeyeong’s scream. “Holy shit, _what the fuck!_ ”

             Above them, the ceiling had disappeared, the walls seemingly soaring into the infinite heights of the Tower. The walls themselves were now covered with portraits of Trump, having somehow been magicked into the break room, but he was no longer merely watching them. His faces were contorted, his hands extended below the frames as he grunted. A voice called down from above: _“I am the greatest thing that has ever been.”_

             Nayeon sat up. Over by the doorway, the Ivanka portrait had changed, too. She was now getting gang-banged by a dozen goat demons with the worst comb-over you have ever seen, and loving every minute of it. “ _Join us_ ,” she crooned.

             Chaeyeong shouted, “Fuck that!” and launched several kitchen appliances into the offending wall. The legion of fapping Trumps, meanwhile, had gotten stuck, their mouths looking like a time-lapse GIF of a tired old sphincter struggling to contain a fart. The girls grabbed their gear and ran as fast as they could.

             Fortunately, the great hall was now bereft of decorations. They were even able to find the way to the missing elevators! They hurried to make as much progress as possible before the Golden One could make things difficult again. Thus it was that they blundered directly into the guardian of the elevators.

             Momo and Chaeyeong were up front, and practically tripped over it. Luckily, it had been taking an extremely long nap, and was not capable of reacting immediately. The girls could see it was some sort of big hairy beast wearing a chained collar, but it wasn’t until it had reared up on its hind legs that they realized just what it was.

             It was the legendary Man-Bear-Pig.

             “ _Rawawararrrrrr_!” it roared incoherently. Then it took a swipe with its claws.

             Momo easily cleared out, but Chaeyeong was not so lucky. Just before Man-Bear-Pig could skewer her, she seemingly disappeared. It was Jeongyeon to the rescue! Over the next three seconds, she yanked the rest of the team out of danger. Each of them experienced the time freeze effect while she touched them, preventing them from suffering spaghettification. But once again, her mana spent, Jeongyeon was out of the fight.

             Jihyo tried to come up with a battle plan. There was nothing nearby that any of them could get to smash the burly monster, so once again they were forced to resort to their knives. Momo and Sana could probably get around back of it and get some hits in, while the others would need to distract it to make their own attacks.

             “Mina, Nayeon, Dahyeon, try to keep it busy! Tzuyu, when you have an opening, make deep cuts! Momo, Chaeyeong, and Sana, I need you to stealth this bitch. Try to make your attacks around its flanks. I’m going to find its weaknesses.”

             Like all battle plans, this one did not survive contact with the enemy. Nayeon looked into Man-Bear-Pig’s mind and came back screaming, “ _Oh God you poor, poor thing!_ ” Mina tried to mesmerize it, and while it worked briefly, her efforts soon ended in tragedy. The monster’s mental programming filled her head with a poorly directed rage, and she tried to kill Nayeon. It was only Tzuyu’s strength that held her at bay. And while in normal times the sight of the tall girl’s arms wrapped firmly around Mina’s midriff would stir the hearts of many, right now it simply meant two more fighters were unable to contribute to the battle.

             But what happened to Dahyeon was absolutely awful. She spawned several of her clones, intending to use them as decoys. She was very successful, too, as the monster couldn’t decide which one to attack. This allowed several of the other girls to get some good hits in. Then Man-Bear-Pig decided to kill the clones all at once.

             What no one had quite realized, least of all Dahyeon, was that when each clone disappeared, its memories were transferred back to the original. Nothing of note had happened to the clones back in Korea, so she didn’t notice anything then. And at LaGuardia, she had not had the chance to use her ability because she was immediately tackled by dirty Magas. So this was the first time she learned what was truly involved with her power, and it ended about as well as an episode of _Attack on Titan_. Most of the clones were killed in one great claw swipe. But the last one was grabbed by the monster, and it proceeded to bite her head off.

             The real Dahyeon was rendered practically catatonic by the experience.

             With several members down, exhausted, or otherwise engaged, Jihyo knew they were in dire straits. But she couldn’t find a weakness yet. Her vision was mysteriously blocked by DVD and book sets that strangely filled the beast’s huge belly. Their cuts did seem to be making progress, but it was as if From Software had given Man-Bear-Pig too many hitpoints. Then shit hit the fan for real.

             Momo had been using her power somewhat conservatively, combining her speed with her knife for devastating strikes. But then the beast wised up, grabbing hold of the chain that kept it in the elevator bank and prevented it from going out to warn the world about global warming. It yanked it into the air at just the right moment. Momo was just able to kill most of her momentum before she tripped, preventing her own gruesome, gory death, but the spill she took still knocked her right the fuck out. Man-Bear-Pig was about to finish her when Sana, invisible, jammed her knife into its ass, to the hilt.

             A horrible, wounded roar shook the whole first floor, and Sana stumbled backwards. As the monster turned to her in pain and anger, it looked as though her clumsiness would be her undoing. Then she remembered she was still invisible, so she just crawled away meekly.

             The fight was about to end anyway. Chaeyeong had gathered up as many of the others’ knives as she could, and sent them flying into Man-Bear-Pig all at once. Both of its eyes were impaled, and the rest opened up its belly. Out spilled dozens of copies of _An Inconvenient Truth_. It shuddered and died.

             Jihyo slapped her own forehead. “No wonder that’s all I could see! It was the only thing keeping him alive.”

             Nayeon came up behind Jihyo, putting her arms around her waist. “Goodbye, Mr. Gore,” she whispered.

             The others were gathering around. Jihyo had to bottle up her desires for the placement of Nayeon’s hands at the moment. A leader has to lead, after all.

             “Is everyone okay? Anything broken?”

             Miraculously, that was not the case. But the girls were definitely not up for more action. Unfortunately, they did not have much choice about it. When they checked the great hall, they found it had gone completely dark. Not dark like the lights had gone out; it was a dark that absorbed all light. No one was willing to venture through it to check their former base camp, and in any event, it no longer felt safe. Good thing that they had managed to grab almost all of their stuff on their way out.

             Luckily, there were restrooms right next to the elevator bank. Aware that the lift could turn out to be a trap, they finished their necessary business beforehand. Then they mustered their courage and climbed aboard. Foreboding filled them as the doors closed.

 

***

 

             The elevator was nice enough. The floor was faux marble, to keep its weight down, and the walls were made of smooth gold, polished like a mirror. The girls’ own reflections stared back at them, repeating into the infinite distance. None of them wanted to look too closely into it, remembering how fucked up the break room had become. The ceiling, meanwhile, was shockingly practical, a set of fluorescent lights around an emergency hatch.

             Jihyo turned to start the ascent. The panels’ buttons had all been covered up but one. Next to it the word “ _UP_ ” was disturbingly written in blood.

             As they began their rise, music began to play in the background. It was very quiet, and extremely boring. Almost immediately they began tottering on their feet.

             Jihyo was worried by this. She wasn’t sure how much sleep they had actually gotten in the break room before their reverie had been interrupted (not enough it seemed), and their most recent battle had just about broken the lot of them. Disaster after disaster continued to overwhelm them, and Jihyo wondered if that is what it had felt like in America before the end came.

             Suddenly, the elevator stopped. “I am really getting sick of all this bullshit,” said Jeongyeon. The others agreed. They soon felt a sick twinge in their stomachs as they began to fall.

             Jihyo acted quickly, scanning the panel. “Hurry, Tzuyu, there’s an emergency stop behind it!”

             Tzuyu reacted immediately, casually pulling the panel off and saving them all. The elevator screeched to a stop, and as they lurched about, the girls thought they could hear a voice seemingly inside their heads. It said, disappointedly, _(you’re fired)_ to no one in particular.

             The music stopped playing, and then the lights went out, spooking them a little. They had powerful flashlights in their kit, but it seemed like a bad idea to use up their very few batteries. So they used green glow sticks instead. The effect on their reflections was absolutely chilling. They therefore used the blankets they had swiped from the first floor to block their view, and ended up curled together in something of a gorgeous girl pile.

             “Well, at least we don’t have to pee,” joked Sana.

             A few of the others gave a weak chuckle.

             Jihyo gave a quick scan of the surrounding area and briefed the others. “It looks like we’re stuck between floors, but between Tzuyu and Jeongyeon, it should be no problem when we’re ready to get off.”

             Nayeon snickered next to her. Jihyo, hardly skipping a beat, continued. “I can’t tell what floor we’re on, there are no signs posted and all the rooms on the floors around us look pretty much the same.”

             “What kind of rooms are they?” asked Chaeyeong.

             “Bland hotel rooms, but it’s difficult to see details…the lights only seem to be on in the hallways.”

             “That makes sense,” said Tzuyu.

             Momo spoke up this time. “Can you see outside? Maybe we can figure out roughly where we are based on all the buildings nearby.”

             Jihyo thought that was a good idea, and gave it a shot. But what she found was disturbing.

             “I can see outside the walls, but nothing past them.”

             “Is it because your third eye needs glasses?” teased Nayeon, right next to Jihyo. Her smile was contagious, and her lips were so close…

             “I don’t think so. It’s more like the lobby was when we left it. Some kind of all-consuming shadow.”

             Nayeon and the others shivered. Jihyo wasn’t sure if it was because of what she had just said or because the room was getting colder. Whatever heat source the elevator might have had, it had been shut down along with everything else.

             With that revelation, nobody could think of anything more to say, so they gradually drifted off to sleep. Jihyo could see Dahyeon’s snow-white visage wincing through bloody nightmares. Sana was sweetly caressing her troubled face, and fell asleep with her lips pressed against Dahyeon’s forehead.

             Jihyo let out a long, heartfelt sigh, and shifted a little to regard Nayeon. She was surprised to see her already looking back, a small smile on her face. They snuggled in closer than ever.

             “Say, do you remember that one time when Sana tricked Momo and Mina with the _ppeppero_ sticks?” asked Nayeon in a gentle whisper.

             Indeed she did. _Ppeppero_ were chocolate covered pretzel sticks. The gimmick was for two people to start at either end, and pretend to kiss when they were done. Sana had pushed their heads together to make them kiss for real. They had been so embarrassed that Mina had actually hid under a table.

             Jihyo looked over at the others. They looked so cute together, in the dim red light. She wondered where the light was coming from, but she supposed someone must have been issued red glow sticks, too.

             “I wish we had some _ppeppero_ right now,” said Nayeon, romantically. She slid under Jihyo’s arm. They laid together, face to face. Jihyo thought back to the last time they had showered together. It was not uncommon for K-pop idols, with their busy schedules, to resort to group showers. But right now, like this, she couldn’t get the image out of her head. She was sure from Nayeon’s intense stare that she was thinking the exact same thing.

             Out in the harbor, the wind was picking up at long last.

             Just then, Dahyeon snapped awake. She had dreamt of Man-Bear-Pig tearing her apart, leaving her staring at her own severed head. As she came to her senses, she was sure she heard a voice in her head from far above: ( _I love beautiful women)_. The red light, intense heat, and blazingly obvious porno music now pounding out of the previously silent elevator speakers disturbed her. She shouted at the others to wake up, slapping several of their asses.

             “Oh, come _on_ ,” pouted Jihyo. Nayeon looked like she was about to cry. The crew of the ship threatened to hang the captain. Everyone was having trouble sitting up, all wanting to go back to sleep and embrace.

             It was the noise and vibration that got their attention. Somewhere up above, there was a sickening squelching sound, interwoven with a lame _fap-fap-fap_. The elevator car was at first vibrating, and then shaking, with each one. Jihyo used her sight to find out what was up.

             The answer nearly stopped her heart, chilled her bones, and stole her breath away. She could not find any words to describe what was coming for them, only weakly imploring that they needed to get out now.

             The thing descending upon them through the elevator shaft had no name of its own, but the best description for it was simple: _hate-jizz_. It was dark and amorphous, simultaneously appearing to be both a slow, oily liquid, as well as a cloud of black smoke. Tzuyu stood up quickly and punched the emergency hatch open. Flashlight beams soared into the blackness, illuminating their impending doom. It hissed at them like an alien from the movie _Aliens_.

 

***

 

             Despite their fatigue, the girls moved quickly. Escape was their only option, so Tzuyu pried open the elevator doors. The hallway outside was inoffensive and normal, possibly the least controversial thing ever to be associated with the name Trump. Its bright lights blinded the girls for a second. Tzuyu blinked, and was aided through by Jeongyeon’s time-shift before either of them could be cut in half in case the lift started moving again. Tzuyu then held the car up herself, giving Jihyo, Nayeon, Mina, and Chaeyeong the chance to escape. But Momo, Sana, and Dahyeon were not so lucky.

             The hate-jizz had reached them. It struck downward with its ponderous weight, pushing the elevator to a spot with no proper exits. The girls who had made it out scattered down the halls, all except for Chaeyeong. She sought to give the last three girls a chance, screaming, “ _Get away from her, you bitch!_ ” to divert its attention. She was successful, as it lunged after her like a drunken comet.

             Taking their one chance, Momo used her super speed to make a sort of power jump straight out of the hatch. She turned around and reached down to pull the other two up.

             She was not strong enough to lift them, however. She did try to leverage her super speed to essentially catapult them out, much like her power jump. Unfortunately, the effort failed, at first because they kept slipping from her grip, and then because she nearly dislocated Sana’s arm.

             Cursing their luck, the girls thought fast. They heard the sound of the hate-jizz coming back: _“I am the greatest thing that has ever been, ever was, ever will be.”_

             Dahyeon came up with a plan. She multiplied herself, producing enough copies to lift herself and Sana out of the hatch. She was then able to dispel them, saving herself from the nightmares of their demise later on.

             But before they could continue their flight, the monster muck was upon them. It slammed into the wall of the shaft above them, warping the tracks and causing the lift to fall another full story. Momo and Sana were able to escape in time, Momo grabbing hold of a mounted ladder in a maintenance tube, and Sana scurrying onto a small, concrete corner ledge.

             Dahyeon screamed when the elevator dropped, and collapsed to her knees when it stopped again. She got back up and pulled her knife, cloning herself several times in the process. But then she noticed she was just about level with another lift door. She had her clones pry it open and had just made it through when she heard them scream.

             She spun around and watched herself die, yet again. One was immediately consumed by the acid splooge. Another leapt to her death rather than be taken, braining herself in the gap between the lift and the shaft walls. The last one, however, retreated back into the hatch, and was consequently pursued by the bile bulk.

             But the monster had erred. Between its body slam from above and its impact just now, the elevator cable had broken. The final Dahyeon clone died with a satisfied smirk on her face as she released the emergency brake, sending the car plummeting. It hit the bottom with an action-packed explosion, completely vaporizing the demon spunk.

             As her final clone’s dying memories entered her head, Dahyeon breathed, “I didn’t know I had it in me,” and blacked out on the hallway floor. Somewhere in the shaft above her, Momo called out for her companions. She didn’t see what had happened to Sana, and no voices answered her but her own echoes. She could not linger on the ladder for very much longer, so she pulled off another power jump, this time through the nearby open door and into the hallway.

             She found that the others were long gone. Beyond exhausted, she settled down on the floor right there, resolving to find them as soon as she woke up, and hoping that Sana was somewhere close by.

             Sana was nearby, but unreachable at the moment. She had crawled through an air vent that had broken open during the violence, but it led her to the floor below. She forced open a grate, and pushed through, falling clumsily. She managed to pick herself up, and soon found Dahyeon’s prone form nearby. The sight of her brought tears to Sana’s eyes. She whispered her name, but Dahyeon was too sound asleep. Sana managed to pull the sleeping beauty away from the open elevator shaft, towards a simple little waiting area. She snuggled together with her, stealing a small kiss. Dahyeon’s furrowed brow relaxed, her nightmares eased a little. Soon Sana joined her in slumber.

             Neither the two of them, nor Momo on the floor above, noticed all the lights go out.


	3. Chapter 3

             The air was crisp, and the frosted leaves crunched as Tzuyu wandered through the dim grey woods. She could not remember entering the forest, and had the vague feeling that she was not supposed to be there.

             She felt the wind pick up, though it remained quiet. Mystified, and with no obvious paths, she had picked a bearing at random. Everything looked more or less the same in every direction. Not unlike Korea itself.

             The daylight began to die, and the trees were overcome with a blue tint. She could no longer see very far in front of her. That’s when she heard the footsteps.

             They were behind her, and rather far away. But they were unmistakable, beginning just after hers did, and ceasing just the same. Tzuyu knew she could not let whomever, whatever it was catch up.

             The indigo twilight deepened to a near absolute black. Only a bit of moonlight through the now falling snow provided any illumination at all. She struggled to make progress, and knew she would lose the race against her pursuer.

             She thought of Slenderman for some reason.

             As that vile thought graced her mind’s eye, the footsteps behind her began to quicken, no longer content to ghost her movements. She crept down under the boughs of a pine tree. She thought that at this point, running would just give herself away.

             She heard the footsteps come closer and closer, but couldn’t see a thing. She held still as long as possible, clenching her teeth to try to stop them from chattering.

             Whatever it was, it stopped somewhere in front of her and didn’t make another sound.

             On and on it went, nothing happening. Tzuyu was in agony, shivering, her breathing getting difficult. She could feel frost forming out of her breath onto the collar of her jacket. She imagined waiting here forever, glaciers forming, crushing her and her interloper until they were both entombed.

             She finally decided to get up.

             As she crawled out from under the tree, her hands and knees loudly pulverized the snow. Her interloper did not react. She stood up, and…

             There was nothing there.

             Strangely, she felt disappointed. _It must have crept away or something_. Now she would have to perish slowly of the cold, all alone.

             At that moment, the sky brightened with moonlight, having finally dropped all of its snow. Tzuyu could see now that she had been on the edge of a clearing. Before her, on the open ground, she could see prostrate figures locked in the embrace of death. _It must be some old battlefield_ , she thought, and she worried about the bodies getting up and attacking her.

             One of the dead nearby was holding something incongruous. It was glowing, and playing some insipid tune. Holding her breath, Tzuyu took a closer look.

             It was a smartphone. They had all died playing _Pokémon Go_. She blurted out, “Wait, am I dreaming?” Behind her, Snorlax said, “ _SNORLAX_!” before body slamming her.

             She woke up in a cold sweat, in the dark, laughing her ass off.

 

***

 

             Nayeon was adrift at sea, a cold terror paralyzing her. Conveniently, she regained the ability to move just enough to look around. She was surrounded by a flotilla of those idiotic red caps.

             Petrified, she waited to die, slipping beneath the waves. But then she heard singing, a voice she knew and loved, which gave her courage. She managed to force her limbs to move, breaking the surface. This time, the caps were gone, and she spied a small rock.

             She reached it shortly, and the singing was louder than ever. She searched for the source, but couldn’t find anyone. All she saw was a ship on the horizon sailing away, christened the _H.M.S. Cocktease_.

             Desperate, Nayeon checked the only other place the singing could be coming from, underwater. She dove in headfirst, and immediately woke up. Her face was buried in Jihyo’s boobs.

             Dazed from the dream, she sat up and caught her breath. Jihyo stirred next to her.

             “What…what’s happening?”

             Nayeon sighed. “Just a bad dream.”

             It seemed that Jihyo understood. Then, a moment later, she asked, “Can you change out the washcloth?”

             Nayeon did as she requested, bringing a fresh, cold compress from the bathroom and placing it over Jihyo’s eyes and forehead. “Are you feeling any better?”

             “Mm…maybe a little bit,” said Jihyo.

             Nayeon and Jihyo had managed to stay together during their flight from the elevator, and like the others were isolated when the tower was plunged into darkness. They had kept all their kit, so they were well suited to wait it out in the hotel room they had found. Jihyo had then spent a lot of time fruitlessly trying to locate the others with her super sight, only to get a migraine. She had said to Nayeon that it felt like something was actively blocking her view, and that was when they had decided to take a break and sleep.

             Now they snuggled together once more, under the covers, Nayeon’s arms wrapped around Jihyo.

             “Nayeon…”

             “Yeah?”

             Jihyo paused before continuing. “Are we really gonna keep dancing around it?”

             Nayeon’s mouth twitched. “No…I guess not.”

             She proceeded to get right on top of Jihyo.

             “Kiss me.”

             They did so, and for a time it seemed the darkness pervading that place faltered in its malevolence. But neither of them could notice that at the moment.

             “Why’d we wait so long for this, Nayeon? We could die at any time, but we’ve already spent years together. We could have been so much happier!”

             “I don’t know,” said Nayeon. “Maybe…maybe I’ve known it all along, but I was just too scared to admit it. It could have been bad for our careers…”

             “Yeah, but we could’ve kept it a secret. And we could have dated each other, and no one would have known we were breaking company rules!”

             “It doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is we’re together now…and if there’s still going to be a future…”

             Nayeon slid off Jihyo into a less sexual position beside her, keeping her arms wrapped around her tight. Shucks, _I_ could use a cold compress now. Taking a deep breath, she made her confession.

             “I love you, Jihyo. I love you more than anything. I think…I think…”

             “Yes?” said Jihyo, tears streaming down her cheeks.

             “I think I’d die for you, if it really came to it.”

             Overwhelmed, Jihyo could not respond right away. But then she had the courage to make her own confession.

             “Nayeon, I love you too. No matter how horrible things get, what dangers we’ll face, there’s no one I’d rather be with at the end of the world than you.”

             Nayeon finally gave in to her heart’s desire, crying tears of joy. They drifted back to sleep in sweet embrace. Strange how, despite their presence in hell on earth, that bedroom was the happiest place in the world.

 

***

 

             Momo was terrified of heights, and yet in her dream, she was using her super speed to jump from spire to rocky spire, in some ridiculous fantasy mountain range. The only thing that kept her going was the fact that her jumps were still a better option than the alternative, falling to her death.

             She could not see much around her, however. Everything was obscured in a greyish-blue haze, like from a video game made in the nineties. She had no idea where she was going, only that she had to move and that the next spire was waiting for her.

             Until it wasn’t. She was stopped by an impressive cliff face looming out of the murk. At the top, where she couldn’t see, were chiseled the words _here your story ends_. For a moment, she had some respite while considering how to approach it. Then she heard something behind her.

             It was a sound like a thousand angry bees mixed with the most retarded _derp_ imaginable. She chose to jump down, falling into a plot hole so that I wouldn’t have to write about her anymore. Just kidding! She tensed up, dreading the inevitable impact, but it never came. The haze became midnight as she fell into the shadows that dwelt between the mountains.

             Abruptly, she was lying on the floor, blind. The pains in her body were her first clue that she was awake. Her second clue was the peculiar way she was being dragged backward. Nothing seemed to be holding onto her; there was just an odd sort of gravity pulling her towards…something.

             It was when her feet began to dangle in the elevator shaft that she realized the danger she was in. She flailed her arms wildly, but there was nothing to grab onto. She then tried to get up, but she was already too far in. She lost her balance and started to fall…

             Momo barely managed to catch the sides of the doorway. She would not be able to hold it for long, so she thought fast. Like her power jump, she attempted a maneuver to exploit her super speed in a way its creators had not intended. She just managed to pull off a ridiculous headstand-somersault, but it worked. She landed on her back in the hallway, with only her long, dark hair extending over the edge.

             She felt herself start to inexplicably move once more…

             Swearing, she leapt to her feet. She had lost all of her gear except her knife, so she unsheathed it from her belt and took a few tentative swings. Still, she felt herself pulled off balance, so she used her speed to swing extremely fast. Since she could not see a thing, she accidentally hit the metal frame of the elevator shaft.

             Several things happened at once. There was a loud clang, some bright sparks, and the knife broke. Momo jumped back, hitting the wall behind her. She slid to a sitting position on the floor, clutching one hand as some of the energy of the impact had traveled up the hilt. However, it was neither the pain nor the surprise that truly scared her. Rather, she thought she had seen something out of the corner of her eye. Something in the elevator shaft, during the flash of light the knife had produced. What it was, none could say, but Momo, tired and frightened and very much alone right now, didn’t want to hang around for a second look.

             _If only I had kept a flashlight_ , she thought.

_(you don’t need one in here)_

             Momo froze in place. What had just happened?

             “Hello?” she asked, faintly.

             Silence was the only response.

             Not wanting to be taken hold of a third time, she staggered back onto her feet and wandered through the dark, her hand on the wall the whole time.

_(where are you going)_

_(come back)_

_(that’s the wrong way, silly)_

             Momo felt lost, and the strange voices in her head were not encouraging. Without visual stimuli, and with her imagination running wild, she seemed to hallucinate all sorts of Japanese horror movie clichés. Eventually, she found a corner to hide out in, waiting for the others.

_(sweet dreams, peach)_

 ***

 

             When Dahyeon opened her eyes, she thought for a moment that she was dead. Then she remembered to breathe. She laid still for a little while longer, listening to her breath intermingle with that of the person pressed against her side. She had her suspicions about who it might be, especially judging from the pleasant scent of her body. She remembered vaguely that she had managed to pocket at least one of the glow sticks before the last disaster struck, so she fished it out now.

             She flicked it on. Its green light illuminated her hands and Sana’s face next to her, but nothing else. Dahyeon thought it was fitting for the moment, Sana’s face glowing in the dark, now the center of her universe. She gazed at her companion, pleased that her guess had been correct. She whispered her name, and Sana’s lovely brown eyes blinked open.

             They kissed, gently and sweetly. The two of them had picked up on the sexual tension between Jihyo and Nayeon, and after all they had been through, they refused to hide their true feelings anymore. Sana had come back for her, after all.

             “I love you, Dahyeon,” whispered Sana.

             “I love you, too. I love you so much. I wish I’d—“

             Something was in the room with them.

             They sat up and looked around. The light from the glow stick now reached the walls. Dahyeon couldn’t understand why it hadn’t just before. But they could see there was nothing in the waiting area apart from themselves, the things they had carried in, and a couple of simple benches.

             They held each other’s hands.

             The waiting area had only two exits. One was back towards the elevators, the other away. They crept forward, until the elevator appeared like a gaping maw before them, a wellspring of darkness. The glow stick made no headway against it. When Sana used a strong flashlight from her kit, it fared little better. This was despite the fact that in the hallway itself, it seemed like a Broadway spotlight.

             They thought they could feel a presence somewhere in the shaft.

             Dahyeon gripped Sana’s hand more tightly. She considered sending a clone in for a closer look, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She thought whatever was in there would not stay put if they provoked it. Sana pointed the flashlight down the other side of the hallway across from them. There, they could easily see a door marked as a stairwell.

             Sana swallowed. “Should we just head straight there?”

             The others were at least one floor above them. Up those stairs was the path to hope. But neither of them wanted to pass in front of the elevator shaft.

             “Maybe if we head back, we can find another way around to the stairs,” suggested Dahyeon.

             “Yeah,” said Sana, “or maybe there’s a different stairway altogether.”

             They went back to the waiting area, arm in arm this time. Dahyeon half expected something to have changed in there, but it hadn’t. They walked down the opposite hallway.

             It was not what they were expecting. It had many seemingly random right-angle turns, and periodically they encountered numbered doors. Eventually, they remembered what Jihyo had reported earlier, and realized they were in some sort of nonsensically designed hotel.

             “Do you think they meant for it to be this way, or were they just not paying attention?” wondered Sana.

             “Knowing Trump…maybe a little of both,” said Dahyeon.

             Sana snickered weakly. Behind them, the darkness betrayed no mirth.

             After spending what felt like an inordinate amount of time wandering, they decided to stop. Despite its meandering, the hallway did not have any branching paths; the same way they had been going could be easily backtracked. They debated what to do.

             “Maybe, if we go back, we can just move fast past the elevator,” said Sana.

             Dahyeon agreed, but had a nagging doubt. “I think we might have gotten too far. It might not let us go back.”

             “ _It_?” asked Sana, tremulously.

             “Not the clown,” explained Dahyeon. “I mean, the darkness, or whatever presence we felt back there. I think it probably followed us.”

             Grinding her teeth a little, Sana pointed the flashlight back the way they had come. It did not seem as bright as it should have been.

             She exhaled the breath she had been holding in. “So we just keep going forever, then.” The despair in her voice pained Dahyeon.

             “Yeah, I guess we’ve got no choice. Unless…”

             “Unless what?” asked Sana.

             Dahyeon looked at the floor. “We could try one of these hotel rooms. I mean, they’re probably all dead ends, but I only woke up again because of my nightmares, and I’m really starting to feel out of it again.”

             Sana sighed. “It seems like ever since we got here, all we’ve done is try to find a place to sleep, and then get woken up by terrible things.”

             Dahyeon looked back up at her. “Yeah, you’re right.”

             Sana’s mouth twitched. “I guess, what I mean is that it’s like something keeps trying to wear us down, and then ambush us. So, I’m not sure finding another place to rest wouldn’t be whatever it wants us to do, you know?”

             Dahyeon knew exactly what she meant. However, it did not change her mind. “Well, either we keep going, and are caught tired out in the open, or we can hole up somewhere and at least have a little bit of recovery before we are attacked again. I’ll go along with whatever you decide.”

             Sana didn’t like being put on the spot like that, but she knew it was better to keep moving. Dahyeon kissed her on the cheek in support, and they moved on.

             They did not get much further. Fatigue began setting in implausibly fast, and they felt the presence nearby, stronger than ever. Dahyeon began to panic a little.

             “Sana, I think we have to hide.”

             Sana didn’t think it was even possible to do so, but she agreed to give it a go. They tried one of the random doors nearby. It opened easily, its electronic lock having failed due to the blackout. Inside they found an innocuous bedroom, except for the skeleton on the floor. There was a large, violent-looking hole in the back of its skull.

             The next room they tried was even worse. The sickly sweet stench of rotting flesh assailed them, and they slammed the door shut. The sound it made was terribly loud, like a barking dog in Jurassic Park when all the velociraptors had gotten loose.

             They passed several more doors before trying again, wanting to put some space between them and the horrors they had just witnessed. They had just opened door number three when Sana, glancing ahead, saw that they had finally made a full circle. Just down the way was the open elevator shaft, and nearby the stairwell, on the proper side with them this time.

             Sana started walking towards it. “Okay, we have a way up! Hopefully the others are nearby and haven’t gone any higher without—“

             Something stepped out of the elevator shaft. Sana jumped back with a shriek, nearly knocking Dahyeon down, and dropped the flashlight. Reacting quickly, Dahyeon pulled her sweetheart up and ushered her into the hotel room.

             Before she could close the door, she decided to go back for the flashlight. She swung the door wide open and lunged for it on the floor. She had just wrapped her fingers around it when she felt something cold touch her face. It was nothing solid, but it made her gasp for air all the same. She tried to move back, but felt herself paralyzed. Helpless, she did the only thing she could, and cloned herself.

             Immediately the attack abated. She was able to get up and run back to Sana, who slammed the door shut and closed its deadbolt.

             Something struck the door with a sound like thunder, freaking Sana out a bit. It rattled on its hinges, but it held. Cold air issued from under its edges, but that was all. Apparently whatever it was, it was too insubstantial to properly break open a door. Dahyeon was sure it would try again, even possibly terrorize them all night. She remembered _The Haunting_ (the 1963 version, not that crappy 1999 remake) and tensed up. _Why did I let Sana talk me into watching that_ , she thought wildly. But she was wrong. Nothing more went bump in the night, and in fact they thought they could feel the presence fade into the distance, albeit not quite completely.

             Having calmed down somewhat, the two of them examined the hotel room. It was clean if a little spartan, but they were just happy there were no dead bodies. None of the lights or anything worked. There was a single bed, a bathroom with few bells and whistles, a small closet with a pair of robes, and the other basic amenities one would expect. There was also a minibar, and while it wasn’t working right then it was still cold enough for the items within to be decent.

             But what thrilled them the most was the window. They pulled back the curtain, desperate to see anywhere outside the tower. The sight did not give them heart.

             Only three things were at all visible, and indeed, just barely. They could not have known what places they were looking at, being unfamiliar with the local geography, but that did not matter to them. For the record, the first thing they saw were the lights in Central Park, from Trump’s perpetual President Forever rally. The next light source came from Rockefeller Center, where Fox News had taken over, decorating the place with millions of Christmas lights, all to celebrate their nightly crucifixions of infidels captured during the War on Christmas. And much further beyond that, to the horizon, they saw the fires of Jersey, like some fever dream of Mordor.

             They put the curtain back in disappointment.

             “Looks like we’re stuck here for now. But it could be worse, you know?” said Sana.

             Dahyeon smiled, a genuine one. “At least...I’m glad I’m here with you.”

             Tears of happiness graced Sana’s eyes. They kissed each other again, their lips dissolving away the worries of the world. They took turns using the bathroom, where there was at least working cold water, and got ready for bed. Dahyeon would have liked to have gotten more comfortable in it, if you know what I mean, but taking their clothes off, or even just their shoes, seemed like an unnecessary risk behind enemy lines.

             They settled in and turned off their lights. After a while, Dahyeon felt Sana’s body relax, the pace of her breathing slow down. She felt that she would soon join her too, but it worried her. Would she ever be rid of the nightmares? What dread terror did her clone witness this time before its untimely demise? Then she realized that she had no memory of its death.

             That troubled her, but only for a moment. Her last thought before conking out yet again was to suppose that she had dispelled it straightaway and simply forgotten.

 

***

 

_“Momo.”_

             Momo flinched awake. She was still curled up on the floor in the dark, lost deep within the sinister hallway. She couldn’t tell whether the voice had said her name in her dreams or not.

             “Momo?”

             She breathed a sigh of relief and reached for Dahyeon. Her hands accidentally touched her breasts, but Dahyeon didn’t seem to mind. She just took Momo’s hands in her own. They were not as warm as Momo would have liked.

             “Are you alone?” asked Momo.

             “Yeah, but I was with Sana earlier. I don’t know how I got here, either. I guess I must have been sleepwalking through a bad dream.”

             “No kidding,” said Momo. “Something strange happened back by the elevator. I don’t know what it was, but I think it wanted to kill me. I also heard voices in my head.”

             “Me, too!” Dahyeon, suddenly quite frightened, snuggled in close to Momo. “It was, like, taunting me or something. Then I think it was...I don’t know, feeding my nightmares?”

             Momo thought that sounded about right. She put her arms around Dahyeon’s waist, and wished there was some light, any light, with which to see her beautiful face.

             She stroked Dahyeon’s back.

             “C’mon,” said Dahyeon, “we’ve got to get back to Sana. I think I must have left her in one of these hotel rooms.”

             Momo almost said something. _You never have enough time for me_ , she thought. Then she berated herself. How could she think of such a thing here and now, when they were in the midst of the fight of their lives? She let Dahyeon help pull her to her feet.

             “I’m not sure, but I guess we’ll go this way.”

             Dahyeon led Momo slowly through the dark, hand in hand. It was very disorienting, and Momo had very little opportunity to feel the way forward. Instead, something was driving Dahyeon onward. _Why can’t I keep up with her_ , she wondered. She assumed it must be the extent of her own injuries slowing her down; they had not exactly healed during her repose.

             After a tortuous pilgrimage, Dahyeon slowed down. “Um…something about this area just sort of feels right.”

             “You’d know better than me,” said Momo.

             Dahyeon stopped for a second, and then said, “Okay, I’m gonna try this door.”

             Momo felt herself being pulled ahead, but then she tripped on something on the floor. Crying out, she fell forward, nearly hitting her head again. Dahyeon had let go during the tumble, so Momo had to get up on her knees and off the floor on her own. She felt around for the offending item.

             “Where is it, the—ah! Here! I wonder who left it here, it feels so odd…”

             Suddenly she recognized it: it was the handle of her broken knife.

             “…Dahyeon?”

             She had not yet picked it up when suddenly it was whisked from her fingertips. She heard it clang loudly as it fell down below. She waved her hand out in front of her, and sure enough found the edge of the doorway to the elevator shaft. She could even feel the point where she had accidentally struck it.

             “Dahyeon?” she called out.

             Nothing.

_“Dahyeon?”_

             Silence. And then: “I’m down here!”

             “ _Dahyeon!_ Did you fall?”

             “Yes, I’m hurt really badly! Please, I’m stuck on a ledge! You’ve gotta climb down here and help me!”

             That freaked Momo out. Clearly whatever had been trying to murder her before had led Dahyeon astray, and was even now using the poor girl as bait. Climbing down a pitch-black elevator shaft in the pitch-black dark was exactly what it would want her to do. She refused to take the risk.

             “Hold on, I’m gonna try and find the stairs. They should be somewhere close by. You sound like you’re only one floor down.”

             “But you can’t leave me here alone!” Dahyeon sounded quite desperate.

             “Look, that…that thing that was hunting me, that was messing with your head…this is just what it wants us to do! If I start climbing, it’ll ambush us and kill us both! Please, just trust me!”

             “Momo, look! There’s some light on this level! Can’t you see well enough with that?”

             Momo couldn’t see a damn thing, but then she wasn’t sticking her head out into the shaft proper, either. She leaned in to be sure.

             There was Dahyeon, just one story down below, barely visible, holding on for dear life. “Hurry, before I lose my grip!”

             But somehow, seeing her barely suspended above the depths below made things even worse for Momo.

             “Momo, please!”

             “W-where is that light even coming from?”

             “ _Jesus!_ The doors are open down here, there’s some light in the hallway! Now come on, for God’s sake!”

             “Okay, already, just gimme a chance to figure this out!”

             She was going to do it. She was going to try to get back on the ladder, and rescue her crush, even if it killed her. And then, if the two of them lived long enough, she was going to seduce and fuck-marry-kiss the hell out of Dahyeon. No more teasing, no more forgotten goodbyes, they would just be together. And if Sana didn’t like it, well she could just watch. _Although, she seems like she’d be open to a shared relationship._

_(i’d watch that)_

             Momo froze. Dahyeon called out again, and Momo responded.

             “That thing…that presence…it’s nearby.”

             _“Oh shit!”_ whispered Dahyeon loudly.

             Momo didn’t feel any more stray thoughts, so she got ready to move. _Where was that ladder_ , she tried to remember. Then she did remember: she had wall jumped off of it into the corridor, so it would probably take a similar leap to get back to it. Such a thing was too much for Momo now.

             “Dahyeon, I can’t…I can’t reach the ladder. I’m gonna use the stairs, just hold on tight!”

             Dahyeon didn’t respond.

             “Dahyeon? Dahyeon?”

             Momo looked down, but Dahyeon was gone, along with the mysterious light source. She started to panic.

             “No! How could this happen? What kind of parody is this?”

_(oops, you let her die)_

_(maybe you should jump)_

_(she made a lovely splat)_

_(do it)_

_(you only failed her)_

_(do it)_

_(and everyone else)_

_(just jump)_

_(how useless are you)_

_(do it)_

_(if you died everyone else would be better off)_

_(do it do it do it do it)_

             Momo barely managed to wrench herself back from the precipice. An angry, alien buzzing was filling her head, and she understood she was under some kind of psychic attack. She crawled around, feeling the walls, and came across an unlocked door. Inside, she gasped; she had found the stairs. None of the lights were on here, but there was at least a window that allowed her to see a little bit. She shut the door behind her, and clutched the railing. _Should I go up or down?_ she asked herself.

_(definitely down)_

             The door flew open behind her. She spun around, but before she could see who it was, they kicked her hard in the pit of her stomach, sending her tumbling below. She landed rough on the landing between the two floors, and was lucky not to have broken her neck, let alone anything else. Before she could do anything, her assailant was upon her, giving her a swift kick to her head. She saw a burst of stars, and then nothing more.


	4. Chapter 4

             Tzuyu was alone and afraid. She sat upright in bed, listening to her own breathing and the much fainter noise of the wind outside. A tiny amount of light entered the room through the window, overwhelmed by her glow stick.

             She exhaled slowly, thinking about that ridiculous dream. _Snorlax_ , she thought. _Really?_

             She combed through what was left of her kit, mainly to distract herself from her incredulity, and was awed by the fact that they had not been given any sort of communication devices. Shouldn’t a military mission include that sort of thing? But she supposed that if the only weapons they had received were knives, then the whole thing wasn’t planned out much at all.

             She thought about the others, and what had happened. She remembered that several of the girls had made it off the elevator with her, and then they had run. She had heard screams and destruction, but she hadn’t stopped to turn around. She just kept going, through the bewildering halls until the lights all went out.

             She had kept still for a few minutes, hoping to hear someone nearby, but it seemed she had outrun the others. She had considered calling out, but chose not to. Instead, she had tried a door nearby, and wound up here. It was comfortable enough, and felt deceptively safe. Thus had she taken her leave of the waking world. _How great that turned out_ , she thought.

             Reflecting back, she felt guilty, resting her face in her hands. Sure, her super strength had been useful from time to time, but she didn’t think it was anything special. They could have given that power to a monkey and it would have done no worse. She felt especially amiss at her memory of the Man-Bear-Pig fight. She didn’t do any damage to it at all, despite her power. Maybe she could have knocked it down, or better yet, grabbed that huge obvious chain and choked the thing out. Then Momo would not have almost died, nor would Mina have been put into a frenzy. Heck, even Sana was more impressive than she had been.

             As low as she felt, however, she only thought of breaking open the window for a fleeting second. But the idea of giving up without trying again was far too bitter, even in her cosmic funk. So she thought about navigating the insidious maze. _After all, I’ve got a fuck-ton of glow sticks._

             Still, she had to go to the bathroom first. When she finished her business, she stood in front of the mirror, washing her hands in the sink. There was a complimentary bar of soap, as well as a wash cloth and hand towel in attendance. Despite the frigid chill of the water, she decided to rinse her face. It woke her right up.

             She looked at herself in the mirror. Dark circles were visible under her eyes, even in the green glow. _Would they still think I’m pretty_ , she asked herself. She hoped the answer was no. She had never liked being called that so much, instead preferring to be called talented. Right now, she didn’t think she was either.

             She frowned into the mirror.

_(you’re so pretty)_

             _Not today_ , she thought.

_(yes you are, and you’re so talented)_

             _No_ , she thought, closing her eyes. _I’m not anything_.

_(but then they wouldn’t have chosen you)_

             She scoffed at that. Of course they had picked her for her looks. She had been one of the most popular contestants on _Sixteen_ , and she couldn’t even cut it for seventh place. Or maybe, even worse, they had created the spot for her just to allow an ethnic Chinese into the group. So basically, she was marketing material. At least Momo, the other person they had let in after losing, was a phenomenally talented dancer. In fact, she had only been eliminated from the show for facially stupid reasons.

             A pair of tears ran down her face, twins in sorrow. The voice in her head was silent. After a while, she thought, _still, I have to try_. She attempted to come up with a plan. She had enough glow sticks to leave a bit of a trail. She could find her way back to the elevators. She didn’t think it was a good idea to use them, but there ought to be stairs nearby. After that, she could…

_And then what?_

_(and then you save them all)_

_But how?_

_(you saved Mina)_

_Hardly, I just held her down…_

_(find them, that’s it, you’re strong enough)_

_I’m not sure about that…_

_(yes you are, you’re stronger together, just open the door)_

             She opened her eyes, and turned to leave. As she left the bathroom, something unnerved her. The glow stick seemed brighter than ever. Hadn’t it just struggled to illuminate her face in the mirror?

             She went back to check. Oddly, the glow stick seemed just as bright now as it had been in the hotel room’s entrance. She could easily see the wall behind her, and the only thing dark was the black of her military garb.

_What the hell? Did I just…_

             Someone knocked loudly. It scared the ever-loving shit out of Tzuyu, who yelped quite pitifully and flinched like she was having a seizure. If she hadn’t just used the toilet, she probably would have needed to change her clothes, too.

             It took her a moment to calm down. The person knocked again. “Hello? Is anybody there?”

             “Dahyeon!” called out Tzuyu.

             “Oh my goodness! Please, unlock the door! I’ve lost my light and it is freaky as hell out here!”

             Tzuyu didn’t hesitate at all. She pulled the deadbolt and opened the door, flashlight out. Dahyeon was there, all right. Tzuyu’s beam illuminated her pale white skin. She scanned up and down the hallway.

             “How did you find me? All the doors look pretty much the same.”

             “I’ve been lost for hours, crawling through the dark. I thought I heard a voice, so I came this way. It sounded like you were talking to yourself.”

             Tzuyu couldn’t remember speaking out loud, but she supposed she hadn’t noticed. She stepped out of the way so Dahyeon could enter. As soon as she had done so, Tzuyu carefully shut and bolted the door again.

             Dahyeon had already walked past her to the bedroom. As Tzuyu turned to follow, she glanced back into the bathroom. Nothing at all seemed wrong. She found Dahyeon standing next to the bed, a small smile on her face.

             That was what seemed odd to Tzuyu. Granted, she would expect a smile under the circumstances, but different from this one. This one was the smile Dahyeon gave when she was nervous, not happy. It was rather fake, and didn’t meet her eyes. Tzuyu cocked her head to the side.

             “What’s up with you?” she asked.

             Dahyeon frowned and looked at the floor.

             Tzuyu moved toward her. “Come on, you can tell me—“

             Dahyeon grabbed the knife from Tzuyu’s belt and tried to stab her with it.

             Only quick reflexes saved her from being gutted. She stepped back, stumbling into the wall, and managed to get a pathetic kick off. But with her super strength, it was still powerful enough to send Dahyeon flying.

             She only landed on the bed. Before Tzuyu could quite get up, she was back. She promptly kicked Tzuyu in the head. She then straddled her, the knife aiming for her friend’s throat.

             But Tzuyu wasn’t finished, yet. She caught Dahyeon’s arm and with her strength snapped it back. Dahyeon merely laughed, black blood spilling out of the open wound. It was freezing, and instantly turned into a strange black smoke.

             Tzuyu gasped. She was terrified of the possibility this was really Dahyeon, but also the alternative, wherein they were being hunted by each other’s doppelgangers. She decided to give the girl one last chance.

             “Dahyeon, you have to stop! Why are you doing this?”

             Dahyeon laughed again. “Why? Because I—”

_(I like to grab ‘em by the)_

             Tzuyu let loose with a mean right hook. It smashed into Dahyeon’s face, and several seams improbably opened up in it, spilling copious amounts of black blood. Dahyeon’s pupils dilated unnaturally, turning even the whites of her eyes black. She vomited black blood into Tzuyu’s face.

             It felt like a typhoon from Antarctica washing over her, or like drowning in liquid nitrogen. Numbness spread everywhere it touched, sapping her strength. She gave it one last push, though, and closed her hands around Dahyeon’s throat.

             Immediately, the attack ceased, and her friend spasmed weakly for a time. Then suddenly she was just gone.

             Down on the floor below, the real Dahyeon screamed in her sleep.

 

***

 

             Nayeon was lying awake in bed next to Jihyo. Surprisingly, she finally felt fully rested. She spent the time dividing her attention between nuzzling her girlfriend and regarding her surroundings. She had gotten quite effective at freaking herself out about them, too.

             She thought she heard someone scream.

             She considered waking Jihyo. After all, Jihyo’s sight would be extremely useful right about now. But after shedding their sweet tears together, Nayeon couldn’t bear to put her love through more pain and strain, especially since the enemy would likely thwart them again. But what could she do?

             As can be foreseen in a tale such as this, Nayeon decided to check things out on her own. She slid out of bed once again and went to the door, picking up a flashlight on the way. Gingerly, she opened the door and slipped out.

             Soon she reached the elevator, after a brief winding walk. It looked creepy as all hell, but she didn’t stop to gawk, perhaps being made of sterner stuff than most. Or maybe she just got lucky. She did not notice the spot where Momo had damaged the door frame with her knife. Nearby was the stairwell door, and she had to decide whether the scream might have come from there or somewhere else on the same level.

             The sound of crying close by made the decision easy. She found Tzuyu sitting on the floor of her room, bundled up in a blanket, the door ajar. Her kit was all ready to go, just waiting for the impetus of its owner to leave. Nayeon sat down next to her.

             “Tzuyu…it’s me. Are you okay?”

             Tzuyu inhaled a wincing breath. She looked a little sick.

             “No, not really. I… I thought Dahyeon was possessed or something. She tried to kill me, so I choked her out and she vanished. I figure it must have been one of her clones. But whatever the hell was in it, it’s really fucked me up.” All this took effort for the poor girl to say.

             Nayeon frowned. “Did you hear that scream?”

             Tzuyu nodded weakly. “I thought it was Dahyeon, but she was already gone.”

             Nayeon briefly bit her lip. “It could have been the real her. I mean, if her clone attacked you, then somehow the enemy got a hold of at least one. On the other hand, it could have been someone else. I just know it wasn’t me or Jihyo.”

             Tzuyu perked up. “Jihyo’s here?”

             “Well, not right here. I left her in our room down the hall. She finally used up her power trying to find everyone, and figure this place out.”

             “What did she see?”

             “Not much. Everywhere she looked, some freaky weird living darkness kept trying to block her view. She’s been asleep for a while. We can try and wake her up when we get there.”

             Nayeon stood up and reached down to help Tzuyu up. They both flinched and let go as soon as their hands touched.

             “Holy shit, you’re freezing!” said Nayeon.

             “And you’re burning up,” said Tzuyu.

             Nayeon thought for a moment.

             “Is it okay if I check your temp?” she asked.

             “I guess so.”

             She knelt down, placing her hand on Tzuyu’s forehead. She actually seemed to have a slight fever.

             Nayeon’s mouth twitched. “Um…lift up your shirt. I want to check your core body temperature.”

             “This is so scientific,” said Tzuyu sardonically. But she did as she was told. “That tickles…”

             Again, Nayeon felt like there was not insufficient heat coming from Tzuyu. It appeared it was just her limbs. There was one more thing she wanted to check, however.

             “Tzuyu…would it be okay if I…looked inside your head?”

             For a moment, Tzuyu looked puzzled, her left eyebrow cocked. Then she acquiesced. “Don’t see why not.”

             Nayeon tried to concentrate. She regarded Tzuyu’s face. The girl had stopped crying, but something about her eyes was seriously fucked up. Nayeon also had to resist the urge to kiss her.

             Tzuyu apparently sensed this. “So, have you and Jihyo…”

             Nayeon blushed, her white face tinged with pink. “Have me and Jihyo done what?”

             Tzuyu managed a frail smile. “You two are so cute together.”

             Her blush deepening, Nayeon got to work. It was altogether different from anything she had tried before, so she was apprehensive. It didn’t help that she wasn’t sure what she should be looking for. But there had to be an explanation, some reason for the odd—

_(surprise, bitch)_

             A nausea bomb exploded in Nayeon’s head, a trap left by the dark presence. She reeled back, and barely managed to make it to the bathtub before puking. All those chocolate chip cookies, wasted.

             She staggered over to the sink and rinsed out her mouth, while Tzuyu whimpered apologies. When she was finished, she popped a hotel peppermint in her mouth and went back to her.

             “Yep, as I suspected, there was something wrong with you. Some piece of the dark presence got left behind. I think that’s what’s making you ill. We should go back to Jihyo, maybe she’ll have some ideas.”

             She managed to get Tzuyu to her feet, but it was difficult. Her sickness left her extremely weak, barely able to walk. Nayeon had to help her all the way back to Jihyo’s room.

             Jihyo had still been sleeping, but the sound of the door stirred her awake. “Nayeon, where are you—oh, Tzuyu!”

             She had just reached the end of the bed when the room suddenly brightened considerably. For a second, they thought the power had come back on, but then they realized the light was coming in through the window. Before they could see what was up, everything began to shake and there was a massive, rumbling boom. Tzuyu fell onto the bed with Jihyo, but Nayeon managed to stay on her feet. She went over to the window and gasped.

 

***

 

             Midtown was illuminated by a great orange glow. The broken skyscrapers looked haunted, and between them and the perpetually dark sky, the scene was like some subterranean necropolis, a Lovecraftian nightmare buried deep within the earth.

             She opened the window and, sticking her head out, tried to look up. It definitely looked like the top of Trump Tower was on fire. But what thrilled Nayeon was that the ever-present clouds of evil surrounding it had faltered. Sunlight streamed down on them, bringing hope to the girls and despair to the hipsters, who now had their terrible life choices exposed for all to see. She beckoned Tzuyu over.

             “Maybe daylight will help your condition.”

             Indeed it did. But it did not help the view of the neighborhood. Stark Tower, especially, was bad.

             Nayeon examined Tzuyu’s mind again. This time, the dark presence was gone, having wilted in the light of day. Meanwhile, Jihyo was scanning like crazy, looking for their lost friends and whatever the fuck had happened up above.

             “I’ve found Dahyeon. She’s in the stairway a couple floors up. She’s passed out, but she’s definitely alive and not obviously hurt.”

             Nayeon saw Tzuyu stiffen a little, and her eyes were slightly wide.

             “Good. Do you see anyone else?” asked Nayeon.

             “Not yet, but… holy shit, the penthouse is fucked up. It looks like a garish Roman temple, but it’s like somebody dropped a bomb in there.”

             Nayeon, frowning, frowned some more. “How close are we?”

             “Pretty close. It looks like the hotel section only goes up a few more floors. Past that, there’s like some offices with a bunch of flaming assholes milling about, and the penthouse is just above that.”

             “Did you check all the hotel rooms yet?” interrupted Tzuyu.

             “No, good idea.”

             That became time-consuming, and Jihyo could not see anyone but the dead before the darkness returned. Nayeon despaired a little as the storm clouds of Mordor blotted out the sun, but the hipsters rejoiced.

             “Come on, we’d better get Dahyeon before something bad happens to her.”

             Jihyo led the way, but Nayeon could see Tzuyu was freaking out a little bit. She just hoped rescuing Dahyeon wouldn’t trigger some sort of flashback in her.

             The hallways were far less scary with the three of them and all their flashlights. They entered the stairwell without incident, and soon reached their friend. It was easy enough to wake her.

             “Jihyo, Nayeon? Boy am I glad to see you—“

             She froze upon seeing Tzuyu.

             “Check her mind, see if she’s the real one,” said Tzuyu, a quivering in her voice. Nayeon noticed she had tensed up, and she couldn’t see her right hand, or what was in it.

             A quick scan revealed no tricks. “She’s real, Tzuyu.”

             Tzuyu relaxed a little, sheathing her knife. But Dahyeon was apologetic.

             “I’m sorry, Tzuyu. I didn’t know, I thought the clone was gone.”

             Tzuyu open and closed her mouth a few times, unable to find the words. So she lamely shrugged her acceptance.

             Jihyo continued. “Have you seen anyone else, Dahyeon?”

             Dahyeon swallowed. “Yes, I was with Sana. After we escaped the… the elevator thing, we stayed together. Then after the… bad clone died, she thought it was best to look for the rest of you. We found Momo passed out right down there! But when we tried to leave the stairs, something was holding the door shut. It did that on every floor. So we kept climbing, and we reached Corporate.”

             Dahyeon looked markedly rattled at this point, so the other girls all sat close with her for encouragement. She continued.

             “It was a bunch of offices. There were things there. Things like the Magas, but stronger and with an actual budget. They saw us right away, so Sana went invisible and I ran back down here. I went through a bunch of clones trying to escape. I think that’s why I passed out again.”

             At this point, Nayeon needed to vent. “What the fuck is up with these super powers? We don’t have the endurance to keep using them like we need to, we don’t even really understand them, and I don’t even think PD- _nim_ ever actually got around to explaining why we were the ones who were chosen for this!”

             The others agreed, but had no response. Evidently, it will remain forever a mystery of the universe. Jihyo cleared her throat.

             “Is Momo still downstairs?”

             “Yeah.”

             “Tzuyu, can you carry her?”

             Tzuyu nodded.

             “Good. Let’s go get her and Sana, then we can figure out what the fuck to do next. Okay?”

             They all nodded, and then each of them took a deep breath, stood up, and steeled themselves for the climb.

 

***

 

             Sana was hiding under a desk. She had been there ever since an explosion from above had riled up the denizens of this foul place. None of them had come back through here, but she could still hear their inane banter from time to time.

             “I’ve sold fifteen million—“

             “Where is _bloop-gorp_ —“

             “No, you must _meeeeewwwww_ —“

             It was enough to drive Sana nearly insane. No wonder America had gone to shit, what with these knuckleheads in charge. You had to be one of them in order to justify voting for Trump.

             She couldn’t get a good look at any of them, but she was sure they weren’t much of a threat. Instead, it was the freakishly tall guys that looked dangerous. They didn’t say anything, and the blubbering morons would go quiet whenever they haunted a given office.

             Specifically, Sana’s invisibility followed _The Lord of the Rings_ rules. 1: She was not completely invisible, only like 99%. 2: She was actually shifting into a sort of shadow-realm. 3: This reduced her normal vision, especially in sunlight, but did grant night-vision and improved hearing. 4: Other beings who shared the shadow-realm could easily see her. Hence the hiding under the desk.

             Back at the airport, Sana had been shocked by this revelation about her power. The Magas in the shadow-realm had looked like hand towels that had been wrung out and left to dry, and then used to wipe one’s ass. And then set on fire. The other times she had used invisibility, none of the enemies had looked different from their real form, at least until she had reached this level.

             She had been screamed awake by Dahyeon, and after comforting her, they had gone to look for Tzuyu. Once they had reached the stairwell they had found themselves trapped, evidently sealed in by the dark presence. Of course they would not retreat, so they kept going up, leaving Momo behind. It was not very far when they reached the end, and the doors to Corporate.

             As soon as they had entered, a mob of besuited imbeciles gathered around, trying to sell them overpriced bottled water. Before they could extricate themselves, one of the tall ones showed up. It bellowed some insane word that cannot be spelled in any human tongue, and all the lackeys ran off.

             They were called Trumpitors, and they were an unholy mélange of Ringwraith, Dementor, and White Walker. They also wore garb that combined Klan, Neoconfederate, and Nazi imagery. They were Trump’s own loyal enforcers and royal guard.

             This one had pulled a long sword. Their knives outmatched, Sana and Dahyeon had had to think fast. Dahyeon sent a clone around back, while Sana turned invisible.

             What was different about it in the shadow-realm was that its eyes and mouth were just holes in its head, inside of which was a bright white flame. She could even feel its thoughts in this form, like white noise inside her head, or an impromptu word salad spoken by an incompetent, semiliterate septuagenarian bigot.

             It went straight for Sana, maneuvering itself between her and the exit, and that’s when she belatedly realized rule number four. She took off running, and probably only escaped because of Dahyeon distracting it. She then played hide and seek with both the Trumpitors and the baser servants of the Organization. Then the explosion happened.

             Corporate had many great windows, and most of it was broken up into a few large cubicle messes, so she had gotten an amazing view of the drama. The Trumpitors had actually seemed dismayed, and the lesser morons had spazzed out over it completely. Then the fireball faded and everything went back to normal.

             Now, Sana was starting to lose it. Using her power would make it trivial to evade the abject fools, but practically invite the Trumpitors, of whom there were over a dozen and counting. But sneaking around like normal to avoid the monster men would be impossible. The dupes bumbling around the place would immediately fawn over her, attracting the guards’ attention. And in any event, the stairs up top were out in the open, where everyone would be able to see her anyway.

             Before she could get too down in the dumps, she heard a commotion in the direction of the entrance.

             “Well hi there! Would you like to try our exclusive Trump-brand bottled water? It’s only $99.99 per bottle! Order now while supplies last!”

             “Uh, _no_ ,” came the resounding reply. Sana’s heart soared. Her friends were here!

             Her euphoric high soon came crashing down to earth. A sound like honking car horns spliced with overhead jets filled the room, and the entire squad of Trumpitor goons tore like hell towards the front entrance. The goofballs began bouncing around the room, too, like an entire bucket’s worth of Kentucky fried headless chickens. Now was her chance!

             She crossed the room invisibly, easily dodging doofus after drooling doofus. The way up was actually a grand staircase, and took over a minute to scale. Up top, Sana emerged into a devastated scene. Inside the penthouse, furniture was smashed and melted. Much of the ceiling had been laid bare to the sky. The marble walls were cracked and charred, and it looked like silhouettes had been burned into them like shadows. As a Japanese person, it was deeply unsettling to her historic memory. She quickly moved through a busted-open set of French doors, and relaxed her invisibility.

             Out here was the garden. It wasn’t even half as bad as the inside, though something did seem peculiarly out of place. A small mausoleum-like building stood incongruously off to the side, made of the same oily black stone as Asshai. She looked at the name inscribed across the top. “Oh, that makes sense.”

             It was the tomb of the U.S. Constitution.

             “What a sick fucking joke,” she said to herself.

             Looking around some more, Sana beheld in awe the grandeur of the penthouse, like a burning Reichstag. She also noticed the broken peaks of Midtown’s skyscrapers, peeking up out of the Mordor-cloud. Finally, she tried to look up, into the sky, at the bizarre rooftop.

_“Don’t go up there.”_

             Had Sana been standing anywhere near the edge of the tower, her flinch might have sent her careening to her doom. She spun towards the direction of the voice.

             It was Loki. No, really! He was leaning behind a half-dead decorative tree, wearing his generic bad guy outfit. Ordinarily, Sana would have been surprised to see him, but after everything that had happened that day…

             “Hi. What are you doing here?”

             Loki scoffed arrogantly, making him all the more handsome. “I go where I please, puny human.”

             Sana did not fall for his charm. “So it pleases you to be here, of all places. I guess you were always a total bitch.”

             Loki did not like that one bit. “Cast thy aspersions aside, foolish mortal! Hold thy tongue or I will smite thee!” And he raised his big pointy stick in a threatening manner.

             Sana, ice-cold, pulled out her knife. Then she remembered that it was a hell of a lot smaller than that stick. Then she also remembered something else, something that made her panic.

             “So, um, did you see that great big explosion? The one from like twenty minutes ago?”

             Loki scoffed angrily. “Of course I did. I know all. Nothing escapes my notice, Minatozaki Sana.”

             That freaked her out, especially because her name was not sewn onto her uniform. Thinking fast, she blurted out, “Uh, what’s my older brother’s favorite color?”

             Loki smiled sweetly. “You don’t have a brother. You’re an only child.”

_Fuck!_

             “Okay, uh, what’s… what’s up that way?”

             She pointed over towards some skyscrapers.

             “A-ha _ha_ ,” taunted Loki, “I’m glad you asked. Over there is Stark Tower, where I was making Tony Stark’s corpse dance.”

_FUUUUCCCCKKKKK!!!!!!!!!_

             “Mm-hmm, then, what’s up there?” She pointed to the roof of the penthouse, with its weird undulating glow.

             Loki’s smile shrank until his lips were a thin-pursed line. But his eyes had filled with jest. “Death,” he said. “Your death, and the deaths of your friends, or at least those still with you among the living.”

             Sana’s nose twitched. Loki’s diatribe was effective at being scary, but something about it didn’t add up. And she didn’t think Trump the man himself could ever really top the monstrosities that toiled for him.

             “You know, you still never explained what you’re doing here.”

             Loki, for a moment, had the face of a pissed-off Walter White. His body tensed, and Sana prepared to dodge his strike. Although she was sure that would just end up with her falling on her elbow or something.

             But Loki relaxed a little. “I’m here because, from time to time, I have need to enact transactions with lesser beings. These good looks don’t come cheap.”

             Sana pressed him further. “So, what? Does Trump owe you money or something? I thought he had stolen all the gold in North America. That’s not enough for you?”

             Loki sighed. “He refuses to make payments in gold. So I thought we’d work something else out, but then he tried to pay me in casino chips, and I only take Bitcoin now.”

             The picture was rapidly coming together for Sana. “Then, is Trump down here or up there?”

             “Up there.”

             “And you’re down here in the garden?”

             Loki started to get impatient. “What’s your point?”

             Sana smiled at him. “You’re not afraid of him, are you?”

             Loki pretended not to hear.

             “Well now, Mr. Loki, that’s very interesting.”

             Loki started to get angry. He had never looked better. “You know what _I_ find interesting, mortal? You were sent here, nine of a kind, and yet only seven remain. And you have not yet even begun the real fight.”

             Sana’s face fell. “What? What happened? Who?”

             Loki’s demeanor perked up. Oh how he loved to tell a tale of doom.

             “You saw their fate when you entered the penthouse.”

             The blood drained from Sana’s face. “They… they were up here… when the explosion—“

             “You poor, miserable, deluded creature,” teased Loki, “you don’t even know what Project X was actually capable of. Those two weren’t killed in the explosion. They _caused_ the explosion, when she and her friend fruitlessly tried to combine their powers. They fell outside the Universe in the end.”

             Sana was overwhelmed. “Why? Why’d they—“

             Loki interrupted her. It made him even more attractive. “You think I, an Asgardian God, am too afraid to confront Trump, yet you are surprised by your flimsy companions’ ignominious end through meddling with powers they cannot even scarcely begin to comprehend, all in a feebleminded attempt to attack Him? _Humph_!”

             At this point, Sana wondered if it would have been better to seduce Kim Jong Eun into nuking Trump. Nevertheless, she persisted.

             “How could Trump, that fat old windbag, have possibly gotten this powerful?”

             Sana had hoped Loki would just say the tesseract was all it took, but she would be disappointed.

             He laughed maniacally. “He has achieved apotheosis! He is the supreme deity of bullshit! What he says, he wills to be!”

_F U C K ! F U C K ! F U C K ! F U C K ! F U C K !_

             “Um, well then, how do I kill Trump?” she asked, grasping for straws.

             Loki never gave her an intelligible answer. Instead, he started a massive rant, one with lots of gesticulating and pacing around. It brought him to the railing around the far edge of the garden. He stood on top of it, proclaiming to the dead city below how awesome and great he was, and how much everyone else sucked. After about a minute of this, Sana snuck up behind him and pushed him over. She didn’t have a real reason why. It just felt like the right thing to do.

             As an Asgardian, the fall couldn’t kill Loki. But it did stun him long enough for the Russians to show up. Several hitmen used kryptonite lasers to cut off his legs, punishment for failing to pay his Bitcoin debt. He would spend the rest of eternity as a pauper in the streets.

             Legends would one day tell that Putin’s corpse smiled upon hearing the news.

             Sana hoped what Loki had said about her friends wasn’t true. But for right now, she needed something productive to do. She decided to scout out the penthouse. Hopefully the others would show up sooner or later.

             No sooner had she cast her invisibility that something completely unexpected happened. It was like the scene in _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , when Boromir tried to take the ring from Frodo. Frodo ended up having some kind of freaky vision. And Sana, well…

             “Wow, Mr. Turtle! You’d make a great album cover,” said Sana to the freaky blue space turtle.

_“Greetings, mortal. I am Aslan.”_

             Sana skipped a beat. “Really?”

_“No, but I like to think of myself that way. My name is—“_

             —and it was something completely impossible to write, say, or comprehend. But trust me, it totally suited him.

             Sana stared up at the giant blue freak, tripping her balls off. “What are you doing here, Mr. Turtle?”

_“I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide, to steal all the very best fantasy movie lines. But also, if you want to defeat Trump, you must do one thing. You must use the power of—AHH! THE DEADLIGHTS!”_

             A jet of bright orange light shot out from above the rooftop, disintegrating Mr. Space Turtle. Sana had only an instant to contemplate her imminent demise when it turned to her.

             Oblivion washed over her, but she managed to close her eyes in time.


	5. Chapter 5

             Once in a while, a customer would come in, but Mina had very little to do on the night shift. She was a part-timer at some nameless convenience store, one of those ones that is open twenty-four hours a day for no discernible reason. After an interminable period, it was time for her to go home.

             It took her some time to get there. She lived in a drab one-room apartment on the outskirts of one of the most inconsequential cities in Japan. You certainly wouldn’t know of it.

             When she got inside she took off her shoes and sat on the floor in front of her television. She had cushions to sit on, so it wasn’t completely uncomfortable.

             She turned it on. After briefly flipping channels, she saw something that gave her a sense of _déjà vu_.

             It was Twice. They were promoting in Japan. She tried to remember their names. Momo, Sana, Jihyo, Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Chaeyeong, Dahyeon, Tzuyu, and—

             It was someone else. Someone she didn’t recognize.

             She sat there for some time, until the television shut off. She wasn’t sure if she had done it, but it didn’t matter.

             Night gradually gave way to day, and still she sat, leaning against the wall. She knew something was wrong, that it should have been her on TV, but her sadness was too great. She didn’t want to be there anymore, or be anywhere at all, but she lacked the energy to act, or even cry.

             Eventually, her body withered away to dust, the building around her succumbing to the ravages of time, but she continued to exist. Ice sheets formed and ground down the mountains, and the sea rose up and reclaimed Japan, and she remained. The sun grew brighter, boiling away the oceans, and filled the whole sky, consuming the earth. Then it faltered and faded, casting Mina’s mind adrift through space, until it seemed every last star had burned itself out.

             She witnessed the heat death of the universe.

             After an indeterminate length of time, Mina at last woke up, as much of boredom as of anything else. Yet she still laid in her hotel bed, hardly aware of anything. Even the explosion from on high did not perturb her.

             There was a commotion outside the room. She heard the sound of a door being kicked in, and running feet. Vaguely, Mina recognized voices. They were of the girls on TV. _I wonder what they’re doing here_ , she thought. _It certainly has nothing to do with me_.

             Heavier footsteps soon approached. Someone began to try each door in the hallway, throwing open the doors. When they reached Mina’s, they found it locked. Bellowing in triumph, they blasted the door off its hinges. Mina was almost alarmed by it.

             The Trumpitor entered the room and paused, taken aback by Mina lying there, just not giving a shit. But eventually it raised its sledgehammer over its head to strike the fatal blow…

             Only a faint ember of humanity remained within Mina. It led her to care just enough to look the fiend in the eyes, or at least where she thought they should be. Then she decided to do something.

             _I never really got to try this out_ , she thought. _Might as well, since I’ve got the chance_. She projected her own mind into the Trumpitor, and in her mood, it proved deadly to the ultimate bigot. Suddenly it did not care about anything; the white fire burning within it went out, and the garish monstrosity turned to ash. Its empty uniform collapsed onto the floor.

             Mina felt rather satisfied; she did not understand why any more than you or I, but it was enough to break her fell mood. She remembered what was real, instantly making her the better of You-Know-Who, and got out of bed. Grabbing her kit, she set out to find her friends.

 

 

***

 

 

             Dahyeon had the most difficulty keeping up. Down the stairs they ran, to escape the goon squad. They picked the first floor below Corporate, desperate to outrun the Trumpitors in the maze. At first the door would not open; it was the dark presence trying to trap them. But Tzuyu had managed to pull off a decent kick, knocking it out of the frame entirely.

             It also made it easy for the Trumpitors to follow. They ran down the zig-zagging halls, but Dahyeon fell behind. Out of breath, she hid around a corner.

             The goon squad barreled past like something out of an episode of _Scooby Doo_. Dahyeon took the opportunity to turn around and head back upstairs. Up in Corporate, she recognized Trump’s lesser minions as Apprentices. Somehow, some way, that damned show was still running. Several approached her, and brimming with disgust, she trimmed the bangs off one of them. It fainted due to fashion malfeasance and the others scattered.

             Eventually, Dahyeon managed to find her way to the penthouse. With it still reeking from the explosion, she went out into the garden. There, she saw a sight that brought tears to her eyes.

             Of course it was Sana. She rushed over, aghast. Fortunately Sana had fallen directly onto a bed of rose petals, so she was not physically harmed. Dahyeon pulled her bag off her back and rolled her over. Then she straddled her. Then a bead of sweat ran down the side of your forehead, because this scene makes you as hot as I am right now.

             “Darling,” whispered Dahyeon into Sana’s ear.

             Sana’s eyes blinked open again. They were a little bloodshot. Then she started to cry.

             “What’s wrong, baby?” asked Dahyeon. She hated to see her sweetheart in pain like this.

             “It—it was horrible.”

             Dahyeon bit her lower lip. Not a lot, just enough to make you fall in love with her. “It’s okay. I’m here with you now.”

             Sana reached up with both hands and pulled Dahyeon in close. Words cannot describe their angelic perfection together. She opened her eyes again.

             “I’m sorry, I should have run the other way. I could’ve lost you!”

             “No worries,” whispered Dahyeon, less than in inch separating their lips. “No regrets.”

             “And also, there is some kind of Death Star laser up on the roof and it nearly killed me.”

             “Well that’s good to know,” said Dahyeon exasperatedly. She kissed Sana, and then snuggled against her side. “So what’s next?”

             Sana considered this. “I’m not up for running around and getting our asses killed, so I vote we stay like this until the others show up.”

             That sounded pretty good to Dahyeon. “But should we do any scouting?”

             Sana shook her head. “If I go invisible again, the deadlights will find me. So that’s out of the question. Say, can you still conjure up clones?”

             Dahyeon didn’t like where this was headed, but she would do anything for Sana. “Here’s one right now.”

             And indeed there was!

             Sana frowned. “How does that work, anyway?”

             “Oh, I don’t know. I just sort of concentrate on this thing in my head and they just appear,” said Dahyeon.

             The new Dahyeon said, “And I’m completely self-aware that I’m not, like, permanent, so that helps out a lot, too.”

             “Okay then,” said Sana, “be off with you now.”

             The clone did as she was told, heading back into the penthouse. After about ten minutes, Dahyeon shuddered in Sana’s arms.

             “Is it…is it gone?”

             “Yeah,” said Dahyeon, a bit green in the face. She waited a moment for the feeling to pass. “It didn’t take too long to find the way up top, but something killed it almost immediately.”

             Sana gasped. “The deadlights…”

             “I guess so,” said Dahyeon.

             A chill ran up Sana’s spine, and she shivered. “Everything is so morbid,” she said.

             “Then let’s liven things up a bit,” said Dahyeon, smiling. They kissed again because LIFE IS WONDERFUL.

             When the two of them had caught their breath, Sana had one last question. “Did you see anything else up there?”

             “Oh yeah, there were I think maybe three men in suits? One of them definitely looked like Trump. He was in a wheelchair. I think the other two might be his sons. There were a few others I didn’t get a good look at. They were all just sitting in some patio chairs, holding baseball bats or whatnot. Honestly, that was actually weirder than the deadlight thingy.”

             “You mean because the Trumps looked like they would do actual physical work?”

             “Yeah, exactly.”

             They pondered this between kisses, until the others finally showed up. Jihyo, Nayeon, and Tzuyu were pretty exhausted, and Mina was just totally spaced out. Oh, and Momo had woken up! They were also carrying some badass medieval European-style weapons, but some of the attached paraphernalia bothered them.

             “Why do the sword pommels all have swastikas on them? That’s about as appropriate as me wearing a rising sun t-shirt in Seoul on Liberation Day,” said Sana.

             Nayeon frowned and rolled her eyes. “We didn’t have much choice, we just grabbed them and ran. Tzuyu?”

             As Tzuyu began plucking off the offending emblems, Dahyeon and Sana reluctantly got to their feet. “So, you found Mina,” said Dahyeon.

             “Sort of,” said Jihyo. “She kind of found us instead. She wiped out all the weird evil guards with her mental power.”

             “Really?” said Sana. “How?”

             Nayeon explained. “She, like, I don’t know. _Depressed_ them to death?”

             “ _Apathy_ ,” said Mina.

             They all turned to her. She looked _soo_ high. Then Sana remembered something. “Holy shit, I almost forgot! I met Loki up here.”

             That killed the mood.

             “Are you sure?”

             “Yes! He was right here. He was waiting for Trump to pay him, but he was too afraid to go up there himself. So he took it out on me, and I…pushed him off the edge.”

             After a moment, Jihyo responded. “Are you sure?”

             “YES! Go ahead, scan down that way!” She pointed at the railing.

             Jihyo scanned, and sure enough, there was Loki, crippled, a gang of Russian soldiers taking turns pissing in his face. And he could not do anything about it.

             “I found Loki. _Why_ did you make me do that?” asked Jihyo, filled with regret.

             “Because he told me that Jeongyeon and Chaeyeong are gone.”

             Everyone was crestfallen by this. Then Nayeon piped up. “Maybe they’ll just show up again at the end.”

             Thus they retained the hope they needed to press on. Sana continued. “Then I saw a big blue space turtle, and it was about to tell me how to defeat Trump when it got disintegrated by the deadlights, and I barely survived.”

             Nayeon perked up at this. “Isn’t it obvious? We’ve got to use the power of love to defeat him!” The smile on her face was so potent, that I swear I am not exaggerating when I tell you that all six of the others wanted to take her then and there, even Mina trapped in her own weird mental abyss felt a fire growing in her loins that could rekindle dead suns.

             Jihyo looked at Nayeon and sighed happily. Then she addressed the others. “Well, I guess there’s nothing left to do but procrastinate. Anybody got anything to say?”

             “I guess I do,” said Dahyeon, and she explained everything her clone had seen. Having absorbed this, Jihyo said, “Okay…anybody got any ideas for a plan of attack? I’m starting to feel a little out of my element on this one.”

             “Nah,” said Tzuyu, “let’s just bum rush the bastards and get this parody over with once and for all.”

             They all agreed heartily and followed Dahyeon as she led the way, Tzuyu sharing with Sana and Dahyeon some extra weapons she had been carrying, all now bereft of their offending sigils. They both swung their new arms with vigor and grace. But Dahyeon couldn’t help but notice the jealous, side-long glances Momo kept throwing at Sana. It worried her, although we will have to wait to resolve that particular plot point, dear reader.

 

***

 

             Dahyeon led them through a broken throne room. It appeared to be the epicenter of the explosion, and melted glass and metal and bits of charred _something_ lay scattered about. Nobody looked too closely at those. At the back of the throne room was a broken set of stairs, and Tzuyu had to help the others climb up. They explored, finding signs of scandal amongst the living quarters. A bedroom stripped clean, its sordid, sticky evidence taken away to the incinerators. Briefcases full of hush money sitting unused and forgotten. And most disturbingly, one bedroom sealed off by a great obsidian block.

             The girls could faintly hear an ominous wind behind it.

             “I’m not sure I want to know what’s past that,” said Sana nervously. The others agreed. Almost like there was nothing behind it at all.

             “Maybe something valuable’s trapped behind there,” said Tzuyu. “Something Trump doesn’t want us to see.” She kept staring at the block. “You know, I bet I could move that thing.”

             Momo shrieked, “No! Don’t do it!”

             But it didn’t matter anyway; Tzuyu couldn’t budge it at all. Little did they know that it was Melania’s room.

             They pressed on, and finally found a maintenance hatch to the roof.

             “This was open before,” said Dahyeon, ominously.

             Tzuyu had no trouble muscling it open, and she took a peek outside. Waiting for her were the Two Evil Stephens, the Grand Warlock Bannon and Miller the Parselmouth.

             _“CUCKS!”_ they screamed, and the battle was on.

             Bannon, dressed like Emperor Palpatine, shot black Force lightning from his fingertips at Tzuyu. She took the full brunt of it and collapsed to the floor. Miller, looking like Voldemort with a nose job, shrieked, “ _MORSMORDE_!” and vomited a giant, mystical white snake. It clamped its jaws around Tzuyu’s throat before she could react.

             “Tzuyu!” cried Sana, as Nayeon sent a psychic blast forward. Bannon, surprisingly spry for such a fat piece of shit, and completely impervious to all other thoughts but his own, leaped out of harm’s way. But Miller, having a one-dimensional intellect, was caught off guard. The rubber mask that formed his face withered away in the onslaught, revealing the hidden truth: he had been a pile of serpents coiled around a giant douche the whole time.

             An entire mob of Dahyeon’s clones charged through the hatch, as many as she could muster, and they and Momo went over the top, chasing the warty warlock. Bannon spun on his heels and blasted the clones, and Dahyeon passed out, practically having a seizure. But Momo easily caught up to him and severed his spine. Pure, unadulterated bullshit poured out, nearly killing Momo with its fumes. He tumbled end over end, over the edge of the roof and to the street far, far below, all the while farting most terribly and epically. He landed with a stinky splat. Right next to Loki.

             “Damn straight,” said Momo. Then she took a knife in the back.

             “I helped,” croaked Tiffany, “I helped Daddy out.” She was wearing soiled red pajamas. “Now he has to love me! _Gollum_.”

             Sana buried her sword in the wretched creature’s neck, and it followed Bannon on the way out.

             “Momo! Are you alright?”

             “No! I’ve got a knife in my back, for fuck’s sake!”

             Sana knelt down over the poor girl. “Oh-my-God-oh-my-God-oh-my-God, what do I do?”

             “Here,” said Jihyo, hurrying over. “I’ll hold her down. You pull the knife out, and somebody else better cauterize the wound.”

             “ _What?!_ ” said Momo and Sana.

             “Here, I’ll do this part,” said Nayeon. She was holding a piece of red-hot metal and a blowtorch she had conveniently acquired between scenes.

             “Alright,” said Jihyo. “Just be ready to burn the wound shut.” She turned to Sana. “You ready?”

             “No!” said Sana. “But here goes nothing.” And she yanked out the blade.

             “Aaaah!” screamed Momo.

             Nayeon pressed the metal into her back.

             “Aaah!” she screamed again, passing out.

             “How’s Tzuyu?” Jihyo called out to Sana.

             “She’s—she’s not dead! But she is crying blood.”

             Jihyo grimaced, and looked around. There were no more enemies in sight, but the rooftop above was covered in ornate brick chimneys that Dahyeon had forgotten to mention. Anyone or anything could be skulking about, and the shifting shadows did them no favors. The strange, undulating orange un-light was starting to give Jihyo a headache, too.

             “Over the top, girls!” she shouted.

             A set of stone steps let from the landing in front of the hatch to the rest of the rooftop proper above. As they reached the summit, the deadlights swept over them with an obliterating force. But Mina shielded them completely with a mentally-generated force-field, because apparently she can do that now. Ultimately, she reflected the energy beam back into itself, utterly destroying it, and saving me from having written myself into a corner.

             A giant pig with what appeared to be a Keebler elf dressed as a Confederate general riding on its back charged forward. Our heroes dashed in a flash as the pudgy putrid porky porcine bashed and crashed and Hulk-smashed through a row of chimneys with a splash. It stopped nearby, and Nayeon recognized who they were from her vague recollection of the briefing materials they were given so long ago. The pig was Chris Christie, his body distorted and bloated with performance-enhancing drugs, his face ruined by butchered rhinoplasty, all in Jared Kushner’s cruel revenge. The Keebler elf was in fact former Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions the Third, wearing his big boy shoes. Both of them were forced to wear wreaths of marijuana purely out of His spite.

             “ _As God is my witness, I shall never go hungry again!_ ” said the elf. He spotted Nayeon.

             “ _I have always depended on the kindness of strangers!_ ”

             “Just kill me now,” said Nayeon, but luckily Mina chose that moment to make her move, flinging them over the edge with her force-field power.

_“The Lost Cause will never die!”_ mewled the elf, pitifully. He and his buddy also splatted next to Loki.

             At the far end of the roof sat three figures. Two stood up as the girls approached. One of them was the Boy Wonder himself, Jared Kushner. The other was Ivanka, a veritable Goddess of Beauty. Nayeon came close to swooning; really, the pictures just didn’t do her justice at all.

             Between them sat Trump himself, a bloated flesh puppet. Complicated machinery kept him alive as he oozed McNugget grease from his every pore. He tried to speak, but Jared and Ivanka had finally sewn his mouth shut after all these years.

             “Uh, guys,” said Sana, “do we just stab him or what?”

             Kushner cleared his throat, his voice cracking as he spoke. “ _No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die._ ”

             He jammed a massive syringe into Trump’s fat neck. The disgusting slob exploded with smoke and lightning, and he was instantly transformed into Tyrano-Trump.

             “You have got to be kidding me!” said Nayeon.

             It was indeed a Tyrannosaurus Rex with the doofus head of Trump. It also had buckteeth.

             “ _Deeeeeerrrrrrrrrpppppppp!!!!!!!_ ” it roared stupidly.

             It could project flames, but only out of its ass. It used this talent to rocket forward, hitting the rooftop hard, smashing straight through. He plummeted down through the floors of his stupid, stupid tower, breaking his stupid, stupid mouth, and exploding his stupid, stupid head. Chunks of debris collapsed on top of him, crushing his stupid, stupid body with its comically small tyrannosaurus hands.

             It left our heroes feeling very satisfied.

             “Mission accomplished!” shouted Jihyo. Then she fell to her knees as Don Jr. _thwacked_ her with a red plastic baseball bat.

             “You killed Daddy!” He looked like a cross between a Resident Evil zombie and those hillbillies from _Deliverance_. Honestly, the look was an improvement.

             “ _Jihyo!_ ” shouted Nayeon, blasting Junior with all her rage and anguish. His head exploded.

             “Nayeon, it’s okay,” said Jihyo, standing up. “He just hit me with a toy.”

             “Heh, heh, heh,” said Eric Trump, stepping out from cover. “Donnie could never do anything right.”

             He held a two-by-four studded with nails. Nayeon kicked him in the nuts, and he crumpled, sliding down off the rooftop to land with a splat. Right next to Loki.

             This left Sana facing off with Barron. “I can’t kill a kid!” she exclaimed. Barron giggled maniacally, his head splitting open to reveal an Assaultron laser. It looked like Sana was doomed, but then Mina just walked up behind him and flicked his power switch off.

             The girls were stunned. They stood there in disbelief. Birds sang. Crickets chirped. They could see Ivanka and Jared off in the distance, fleeing for their lives in a golden helicopter. Downstairs, the lowlifes of Corporate could be heard weeping.

             Jihyo looked around. Nothing had changed. The sky was just as fucked up as ever, even with the deadlights gone. The tower still stood.

             “This sure seems anticlimactic,” said Nayeon.

             The others agreed. They decided to head back to the garden for the time being. Along the way, they rejoined their fallen comrades, who had woken up and recovered somewhat.

             “So—what do—we do—now?” wheezed Tzuyu between unhealthy hacking coughs.

             “I dunno. I guess we had better check the body down below. Then, maybe catch a ride to Brooklyn, see what Conan can tell us?”

             No one answered her, for they finally began to notice something was wrong. The wind was picking up, and everything was getting darker.

             “Yeah, this is more like it!” shouted Nayeon. Her smile sundered the heavens.

             A great bloody dragon made of darkness showed up. They heard asinine echoes within it, and they realized that it was the Tweetstorm from way back at the beginning. It had managed to make it back here for the final showdown!

             Mina blasted it with her nothingness. But the dragon laughed, and said, “ _Fool! I am the Know-Nothing! Actual nothingness has no ill effect!_ ”

             Nayeon and Jihyo both tried to find its weaknesses. But the dragon laughed and said, “ _Looking for something? How about the worst dick pics the internet has to offer!_ ”

             The two of them were immediately sent gagging into a nearby flower bed.

             Tzuyu swung her sword. It had no effect. The dragon did not even dignify her attack with a response.

             Dahyeon grabbed Sana. “You have to try your invisibility! Maybe you’ll see something we can use!”

             Sana disappeared right in front of her. Then she came back. “I need all of your help! Cuddle together, quick!”

             They all got together in one big happy hug, and Sana managed to turn everyone.  What they saw in the shadow-realm was something they did not expect.

             They were glowing, a bright blue light that burned away the dragon.

             “Ha!” shouted Nayeon, “I knew I was right! LOVE CONQUERS ALL!”

             Their passion for each other withered away the darkness. “ _Oh what a world, what a world…”_

             When the dragon finally disappeared, Sana brought them out of the shadow-realm. The horror-clouds around Trump Tower had at last evaporated. Golden sunlight caressed their skin, making them look heroic and sexy as hell. And yet—

             Jihyo couldn’t help herself. “That was a little more impressive, but still anticlimactic.”

             No one disputed that. They all found a bench to sit on, to share the pleasant rays with each other.

             Sana piped up. “You know, I could sure use some pizza right about now.”

             They all agreed. Nayeon stood up first. Stretching her limbs, she said, “Chocopies sound pretty good too!”

             Nobody responded. Nayeon realized that everything had gone totally silent.

             She turned around and the bench was empty. But there was someone else there…

             It was a man in a blue suit. He had black hair and a gaunt, sallow face. He held a briefcase in one hand, and fidgeted with his tie with the other. Dahyeon tried to take a step back, but suddenly realized she couldn’t move.

             The man cleared his throat. “ _Im Nayeon, in the flessshhhh. Or rather, in what can only be charitably called a military uniform. I took the liberty of relieving you of your weapons. Mossssst of them were government property_.”

             Nayeon was freaking the fuck out. The man spoke strangely, and she struggled mightily to place just what pop culture reference he had spawned out of.

             There was a flash of light. Suddenly, the scene had changed. They were back in the front lobby with its horrible walls of portraits. But this time, the paintings were empty. A great blob, Tyrano Trump, slowly oozed away, like strawberry jelly.

_“You’ve done well for yourself, really proving the utility of Project X, and taking care of that pathetic little meathead to boot. My employers in fact see limitlesssssss potential in you and your friends. So much so that I’ve already gone and resssssscued those two sillies who got themselves lost.”_

             Everything flashed again, and Nayeon and the man were now seemingly floating in space.

_“I’ve received some very interesting offers for your sssservicccccessss, and rather than giving you and your friends the illusion of free choice I will take the liberty of choooooosing for yoooouuuu.”_

             Nayeon had just enough willpower in her to break free and speak. “What? Why? When—“

             He gave her a nasty grin. “ _When Half-Life 3 comes out_.”


	6. Chapter 6

               The sky was grey, and Dahyeon woke up lying on her back in the middle of a cold field. She sat up and looked around. She was close to an old English-style farmhouse. She soon spotted the others getting to their feet nearby, looking frankly bewildered. She stood up as well and trotted over to Sana.

               They hugged briefly, and everybody else gathered around. Even Jeongyeon and Chaeyeong were back! Jihyo cleared her throat.

               “I kinda get the feeling some time has passed, and we left something undone.”

               Everybody nodded solemnly in agreement. Then they heard a commotion as somebody threw open the farmhouse door.

               It was Conan, looking quite worse for wear. “Hey guys! Welcome back!”

               He grinned like an idiot and beckoned them inside. Reluctantly, our heroes followed.

 

***

 

               Conan gestured at them to sit down. “Well folks, it’s been a while. You’ve been gone for over a year—I know, what a shock! But our ‘mutual friend’ told me where you’d pop up, so there’s that.”

               Dahyeon felt her heart quiver uncomfortably. “Uh, where were we all for a year? And what happened to those two?” she asked, pointing at Jeongyeon and Chaeyeong.

               Conan shrugged like a douche. “What’s his name somehow put you on ice until he needed you again. He’s got some kind of connection to Project X, and he must have been watching the whole Trump Tower fiasco, to spirit you all away like that. Especially when that bomb went off.”

               “People saw that?” asked Chaeyeong incredulously.

               “Oh yeah, it lit up the whole city. I was able to swipe some good stuff while everyone was looking the other way.” And he rolled up his sleeve to reveal half a dozen Rolexes.

               Nayeon, who was too perplexed to frown, asked, “So, what the fuck are doing here, Conan?”

               “Oh that. Well, it turns out Trump had researched some means of insuring his own immortality. Yeah, I was surprised he thought that far ahead, too. But anyways, he had a bunch of horcruxes made, so you have to go in and wipe them out. Otherwise his Unholiness will reconstitute himself sooner or later, covering all the world in a second darkness.”

               “Horcruxes?” interjected Tzuyu. “You mean like in _Harry Potter_?”

               “Yes! Exactly. In fact, Hogwarts is where he stashed them all, so you’ll need to go in on foot to find and destroy them.”

               “Not that it matters,” said Mina, “but…how is it that Hogwarts exists?”

               Conan sighed. “This whole fiasco has just been one grand exercise in plagiarism. Maybe just don’t worry about it.”

               But that wasn’t good enough for them.

               “Alright, okay, jeez. Well, from what I’ve heard around, either Trump built Hogwarts as some kind of rip-off, or else _Harry Potter_ was actually a secret history and everything we know is a lie. My heart leans toward the latter.”

               “Well, I’ll be,” said Mina.

               Nayeon frowned. “But why the hell were we in stasis for a year? Couldn’t we have just come here immediately?” The others all agreed with her sentiment.

               Conan shook his head. “Nobody knew about it until recently. You see, after your great success, the world rejoiced. But then High Queen Ivanka slaughtered the infidels, and we all had to go into hiding. Eventually it was realized she was using her father’s eldritch powers somehow, and ultimately that led us here.”

               “But can’t somebody else do this shit?” asked Momo. “Why’s it got to be us again?” Her friends were of the same mind.

               Conan placed his hand over his heart. “Alas! We actually sent other teams in first. But we’ve never heard from them again. You people on ice are the last ones left. Only those who’ve taken Serum X can enter now; all the mages are dead or in exile, and normies disintegrate when they touch the Shimmer. And we can’t make new subjects, all the project material drowned when Korea sank into the ocean last year.”

               Conan was taken aback by the strong reaction this elicited.

               “Hey, don’t worry kiddos, none of your friends and family were there when it happened—”

               The girls looked faintly relived at this.

               “—they all died when the Know-Nothing devoured their souls beforehand.”

               Despair conquered all.

               “Anyways, this place is your jumping off point. You can have a day to decompress, but then you need to head through the woods to Hogwarts. Just follow the railroad tracks. I can’t go with you, and in fact will be leaving momentarily, so you’ll be on your own again.”

               Jihyo had a question. “Why?”

               “Because I’m a Muggle, and you all no longer count because of Project X. Didn’t you read _Harry Potter_?”

               They had.

               “Well, that settles it, then.”

               Jihyo had another question. “Why?”

               Conan made a stink face. “What do you mean _why_?”

               “Why _everything_!” Jihyo exploded.

               “Look, kiddo, don’t attack the messenger. I have no idea why I’m the damned errand boy, any more than you or I know anything else about Project X, or how any of this is even possible at all. I just know there are forces at work beyond _my_ ability to comprehend, so fuck it!”

               “Goodbye Conan, you’ve been such a great help. And it was totally super making that music video with you,” said Jihyo, icily.

               Conan swore on his way out the door, he swore while he started up his rental car, and finally he honked his horn and gave them the finger on his way down the driveway. Several miles away, he crashed his car because he forgot the correct side of the road to drive on in the U.K.

               Jihyo looked to her charges. “So, I guess we should talk about what happened.”

               “Yeah, babe,” said Nayeon, “but first let’s look around the kitchen. I’m fucking starving, and I think we all need a little comfort food after that dude’s bullshit.”

               Everyone perked up at the thought of burying their sorrows beneath a coating of sugary food.

               “Maybe there’s ice cream!” suggested Sana, inordinately cheery given their circumstances.

               But there was ice cream, and donuts and cakes, and more. Conan had left them quite a selection of food from Tesco, so they dove right in with all abandon given that their idol careers were effectively over. After about half an hour, they slowed down enough for them to start talking again.

               “First,” said Dahyeon, cuddling with Sana, “what I want to know is what happened to you two.”

               Everyone looked at Jeongyeon and Chaeyeong expectantly. The two of them looked at each other, and then the older girl spoke first.

               “We all got separated after escaping the elevator, right?” asked Jeongyeon. “Chaeyeong and I must have just gone faster than the rest of you. We made it up top, and the underlings in Corporate didn’t react to us immediately. So we just kept going. Nobody tried to stop us until we reached the penthouse.”

               “What did it look like?” asked Nayeon.

               “Porn everywhere,” said Chaeyeong.

               Jeongyeon continued. “In the middle of the main room, there was a guy sitting on a giant throne. We thought it was mecha-Trump for a second, but when he sprouted angel wings, we realized it was actually the Vice President. He even had a giant sword with the word ‘ _hypocrite’_ emblazoned upon it.”

               Tzuyu spoke up. “Is that when the explosion happened?”

               “Not exactly,” said Chaeyeong. “First we hung out in a side room for a while. Otherwise that would be a continuity error. Then after some time we went looking around and he finally noticed us.” She shuddered at the memory. “He had taken a few swings at us when we managed to combine our powers. Basically, I levitated a knife at him, and Jeongyeon throttled her time power somehow and sent it flying at him at relativistic velocity.”

               “Wow,” said the others.

               “Yeah,” said Jeongyeon, “it completely obliterated him and pretty much the whole room. I was sure we were going to die until I realized everything had frozen.”

               “Was it that mystery man?” asked Sana.

               “Yes,” said Chaeyeong. She tried to imitate his voice. “ _Nice try, Ms. Son. And just in time too. You’ve done sooo much in a small time-span_. Time, time, time, blah, blah, blah. It didn’t make any sense, and I think he was being really sarcastic, but at least I wasn’t dead. And then suddenly we showed up in that field outside.”

               “Wow,” said the others.

               “What about the rest of you?” continued Jeongyeon. “What happened after we were gone?”

               “It turned into a horror story,” said Jihyo. “Probably because the author doesn’t know what he’s doing. But anyway, we managed to regroup and assault the rooftop. Then everything just sort of ended, and that guy did his weird thing, and here we are.”

               “Wow,” said the two of them.

               They all lounged about together, curled up under blankets upon several sofas and chairs, ready for food comas to take them. Dahyeon gently squeezed Sana’s hand as she nodded off, thinking

               ( _can’t we just stay here like this forever_ )

               when there was a commotion outside. The girls all got up and made their way to the door and windows.

               Outside, the wind had picked up and a light snow was falling. The one and only Santa Claus landed in the yard with a sack full of presents. Instead of reindeer, his sleigh was pulled by a team of thestrals because that would actually make canonical sense. Jihyo opened the front door.

               “Ho, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum!” roared the jolly fat fuck, and he half-carried, half-dragged a pile of parcels towards them. The girls, for their part, might have helped him unload his gifts, if not for the chill, and their own stupefaction.

               “Why, hello there, ladies,” he greeted them. “I have some gifts for you before you set off. Stuff the naughty ginger couldn’t have unsecured.”

               “You’re real?” asked Chaeyeong.

               “Well, yes and no,” said the merry old fart. “I used to make toys, but I never gave them away for free. I sold them, and those silly Christmas stories were just my dishonest advertising. But anyhow, my Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole sank beneath the waves some time ago. If it weren’t for the International Statute of Secrecy, I would have made damn sure everyone had known global warming had ruined my small business. But since I didn’t want to end up in Azkaban, or stuffed like that poor Mr. Gore, I had to keep my mouth shut.”

               “Wow,” said the others. Then Sana had an idea.

               “Mr. Santa, have you ever met a giant blue space turtle?”

               “Nope,” said Santa. Sana was crestfallen.

               Jihyo asked, “What have you got for us?”

               The old man smiled. “For you, a gift befit for a leader: the Horn of Gondor.”

               “Hooray,” deadpanned Jihyo.

               He next turned to Nayeon. “I give you Dumbledore’s Deluminator, to take you down a notch.”

               The look on Nayeon’s face upgraded from frown to glower.

               “For Tzuyu, I give the Sorting Hat.”

               “ _Deus ex machina_ , you mean.” He did not disagree.

               “For Chaeyeong, a set of magical throwing axes.”

               She was very appreciative of the badass-ness.

               “For Mina, the Light of Earendil.”

               Mina had no response.

               “For Jeongyeon, a pocket watch.”

               Jeongyeon was not sure if she should be insulted or not.

               “For Sana, this crystal pendant.”

               “Huh?” said Sana.

               “For Momo, a matching pair of shotels.”

               “Holy shit!” They were even more impressive than the axes.

               “And finally, for Dahyeon, I give…”

               Dahyeon tensed up.

               “… this enchanted halberd.”

               “ _Damn_ ,” said Dahyeon, quite impressed.

               “And one more thing: the rest of the shit in here is your supplies. Take care!”

               Off he went, never to be seen again.

               For a time, they stood there, snowflakes settling on their clothes. Then finally they felt too cold and brought the stuff inside. Before they could sit down and examine their new toys, they had to build a fire for light and warmth. At which point, they nonverbally decided that the day was too late to head off trudging through the woods and snow to their deaths.

 

***

 

               “Before we continue, I think we ought to clarify whether or not we’re gonna go through with this shit again,” said Jihyo.

               “Here, here,” said Momo.

               Nayeon looked around at the others, then back to Jihyo. “Wait, you’re still our leader, right? What do _you_ want to do?”

               Jihyo had to take a second to really think it through. Then she said, “Fuck it, might as well. Not like we’ve got anything better to do.”

               Nayeon put her arm around Jihyo. “Live together, die alone.”

               The others had to take a little more time to decide. Dahyeon whispered to Sana.

               “What are you thinking, hon’?”

               Sana pressed her cheek against Dahyeon’s. “Hmm. Honestly, I’m not sure. But there’s something bugging me a little.”

               “Yeah?”

               “What the fuck was that turtle thing I saw?”

               Dahyeon smiled. “I’m sure it’s just a reference to a book none of us have read.”

               “Oh really? Well then, what do you want to do?”

               Dahyeon’s smile faded. “To be honest, if we’d been given a choice before Trump Tower, I’d have said no. But now I’ve tasted power, and I kind of like it. Especially now that I’ve got a real weapon.”

               They got up and looked over their presents. Sana’s crystal pendant was light-absorbing and enigmatic, while Dahyeon’s halberd looked anime as fuck.

               “Give that thing a swing for me,” encouraged Sana.

               Dahyeon complied, taking her new toy to an empty corner of the room and swinging it full force. It glowed blue, crackling with magical energy.

               “Whoa,” said Dahyeon.

               “Hey,” piped up Nayeon, “Let’s all show each other our gifts.” She pulled out her Deluminator and clicked it. Groovy balls of light shot out and supercharged the electric lamps in the room. They all thought that was neat.

               “Hey babe,” said Nayeon, “try to blow your horn.”

               Jihyo blew mightily, but for some reason it wouldn’t toot.

               “It must only work in great need,” suggested Mina, ever-wise. Her own phial was quite dim compared to the lamps and fireplace. Her assessment proved true for the watch and pendant as well. Meanwhile, the axes and shotels had the same sort of nifty effect Dahyeon’s halberd did. This just left Tzuyu with the Sorting Hat.

_(bee in your bonnet?)_

               She put it on.

               “Now, now, aren’t you interesting, Ms. Chou,” it said to her privately. “Want to be called ‘talented, not ‘pretty’? I’d say that’s a sign of ambition, or maybe vanity.”

               She did not like where this was going.

               “What, you don’t want to go to Slytherin? I mean, really you can’t, since none of you are students or true magic users, but at least one of you needs access to that wing of the castle, and anyway why wouldn’t anyone want to join the Serpent’s House, they’re so cool…”

_But…aren’t I supposed to pull Gryffindor’s sword? That’s why I thought I got this gift! How can I pull it if I’m not in Gryffindor?_

               “Oh, Ms. Chou, that is really just a technicality I can freely ignore. I’ll give up the sword to anyone who is brave enough. But unfortunately I don’t see that in you, at least not enough to define you, yet, so it’s got to be _SLYTHERIN_!”

               The other girls were startled by the hat’s sudden outburst, and shocked by how it had judged Tzuyu. She tossed it on the floor, dejected.

               No one wanted to pick the thing up, but Jihyo eventually did. It did not take long to declare her a “ _HUFFLEPUFF_!” and she passed it to Nayeon, a look born of confusion on her face.

               Nayeon hesitated before putting on the Sorting Hat. From her gradually worsening expression, they could tell she was losing the argument. She was silently crying when it finally called out “ _SLYTHERIN_!”

               Mina was next. After about a minute, it made her a Ravenclaw. She was not at all disappointed.

               Momo joined Hufflepuff, Jeongyeon became the second Ravenclaw, and Chaeyeong was their first Gryffindor. Surprisingly, to herself as well as the others, Sana joined the lion as well. Thus it was that Dahyeon was the last to wear the Sorting Hat.

               “Why, it’s been years since I’ve had so much fun,” the Sorting Had confided to Dahyeon. “Ever since that orange git massacred all the Ministries of Magic, the school has been shut down, at least as an educational institution. So I’ve had not much to do all this time.”

               _Must be lonely_ , thought Dahyeon.

               “Not really. After all, I am an inanimate object, and the world is filled with those. But I appreciate your concern, Ms. Kim.”

               She sighed. _So what’s it gonna be? Hufflepuff?_

               “Now don’t feel bad about that, Ms. Kim. Hufflepuff is nothing to be ashamed of, and after all you people have been through, I can honestly state that each and every one of you would be a fine addition to any of the Houses. But I must pick one, so I go by which facets of your character are the strongest.”

_I guess all this long wind implies I am not strongly Hufflepuff._

               “That is correct, Ms. Kim, although you are quite rude. And despite your overbearing fear of just about everything, I have detected an inner strength that compels me to choose _GRYFFINDOR_!”

               She was just as astonished as any of them.


End file.
